death on the day of love: requiem in pace redux

The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre. It's inevitable that that's what it will be called. Death on the day of love. Or Virginia Tech revisited. As of now, it's six dead, including the shooter.

How did we get to a place that mass-murder is a solution for one's personal demons? Will expressions of outrage and the outpouring of grief prevent the next such event, or simply encourage it? I cringe at the thought of the facile platitudes that will be spewed forth over the next few days from politicians and pundits who are seeking personal gain from tragedy.

What role is played by a political and commercial leadership that is so utterly sold-out to money that it cares not for human life if a profit can be made in war? By politicians and "intelligence" officials who justify torture as a means for gathering information?

Why does this strike so deeply, while genocide in places like Darfur seem so remote and irrelevant?

How dark is the human heart? How thin is our veneer of civilization?

I don't know what else to write. "Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD" (Psalm 130:1)