The Deadliest Mass Shooting in U.S. History

I’m still shaking from what happened at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis. It was just the first week of school. Kids and parents tucked in for a calm morning Mass. Then bullets ripped through stained-glass windows. A 23-year-old identified as Robin Westman stood outside. Armed with a rifle, shotgun, and pistol. He fired dozens of rounds into a sea of children and parishioners. Two kids, aged eight and ten, died on the spot. Seventeen others got hurt, fourteen of them children. The rest were elderly parishioners in their 80s. Westman turned the gun on himself and died at the scene. People were left screaming, crying, and praying for help in the chaos.

The school has been a Minneapolis mainstay since the 1920s. About 340 students were enrolled. A tight-knit, faith-centered community. Children sat in pews for morning prayers when the shooting started. Emergency teams arrived fast. Medics rushed kids to Hennepin County Medical Center. Several needed surgeries. Miraculously, officials say nearly all survivors will make it. The speed of the response saved lives that morning.

Westman’s background? Chilling. He was a former student at the church. He legally changed his name from Robert to Robin in 2020. He posted disturbing content online. Anti-Semitic, anti-Christian and racist stuff. He even left a handwritten manifesto. The FBI is digging into it. They’re investigating this as a possible hate crime and domestic terrorism. Neighbors said he kept to himself, but his social media told another story. It was full of rage, paranoia, and obsession.

Now pause that horror. Let me tell you how bad it once got.

Back on October 1, 2017, Las Vegas changed forever. The Route 91 Harvest country music festival was wrapping its third day. Thousands stood under open skies near the Strip. And above them, in a high floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel, 64-year-old Stephen Paddock quietly pulled the trigger. He unleashed over a thousand rounds from his suite. He had checked in six days earlier with bags that looked like shooting gear. He booked two rooms. One overlooked the festival. He set up an arsenal, rifles, scopes, bump-stock modifications, ammo, all legally acquired. The preparation alone showed how far he had gone to plan it.

Then the shooting started. It lasted ten minutes. Bullets rained down on concertgoers packing the field. People screamed, ducked, stampeded. Paddock killed sixty people. Hundreds more got wounded, 867 by official count. Panic swallowed the night. When SWAT closed in, he killed himself. Survivors later said the sound of gunfire haunted them for years.

He had researched the festival. He even tried booking rooms overlooking Chicago’s Lollapalooza. He wanted a crowd. The FBI found zero manifesto. No note. Just a man who carefully planned mass slaughter. Peers said he snapped when he felt the casinos stopped treating him like a VIP. He lost money gambling. He cut off friends and loved ones. Still, no clear motive. In the end, he left no answers, only devastation. That massacre in Vegas stands as the deadliest shooting in modern US history. The scale and randomness shook the nation. People flew in from across the country for funerals. Entire families were torn apart in a single night.

So here we are again, Minneapolis this week, Las Vegas back then. Both stories end the same way. People carrying on their daily routines, no idea danger waited. Then bullets. Then grief. In both cases the shooters planned. Westman with his spoilers online. Paddock with his suitcase arsenal. Both targeted crowds. But one inside a house of worship and school. The other in a music festival. The setting changes, but the pattern feels painfully familiar. First responders ran in anyway. In Minneapolis they saved dozens of kids. In Vegas they ran toward the gunfire in a field of carnage. In each siding of horror, they stood for hope. The bravery of strangers often shines brightest in moments like these.

Here’s my two cents. Every time this happens, we’re told “thoughts and prayers.” But we all know that rings hollow. After Las Vegas nothing changed. Gun laws did not budge. After Minneapolis, maybe this time things shift. But I have seen the cycle repeat too many times. We owe the victims action, not silence. We owe the survivors community, not slogans. And we owe ourselves the truth, real prevention, not platitudes. Both tragedies sound like fiction. But they played out in real life. They leave the same ache. Maybe this time we will wake up before the next one.

That’s all I’ve got for today. If you made it this far, thanks for hanging out with me. I’ll be back with more insights tomorrow, and of course, the news roundup drops every Wednesday and Saturday.

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Until then, stay curious and stay sharp. See you tomorrow!