In many countries, more than just “thoughts and prayers” would be offered by those with power to the survivors of a repetitive story.

We’re not even two months into 2018 and yesterday’s massacre was America’s 18th school shooting of this year.

Occurring in Parkland, Florida, the school shooting left 17 people dead and a further 14 injured. You can see harrowing footage from the awful event here.

Since the Columbine High School shootings in 1999, the story has become rather repetitive; people have become numb, writes Quartz.

However:

Beneath the cultural numbness lies real pain—felt not only by the victims, families, and friends personally affected by individual school shootings, but among Americans ashamed by the country’s failure to take meaningful steps to protect the lives of children.

This sense of grief and deep frustration was on full display during a CCN interview. Host Wolf Blitzer was talking to former FBI agent and counterterrorism expert Phil Mudd when the following went down:

The clip begins with Blitzer asking Mudd about his perspective on the Parkland shootings as a former member of the FBI. “You think it’s antiseptic,” Mudd says of the violence. “It’s not.”

To illustrate the horror of the bloodshed, Mudd begins talking about a terrorist sent by ISIS and Al-Qaeda to set off a car bomb, who wound up losing much of his skin, hands, and feet. Then Mudd veers back to the school shooting:

“I have 10 nieces and nephews,” he says. “We’re talking about bump stocks, we’re talking about legislation.” Mudd’s voice starts to shake. “A child of God is dead. Cannot we acknowledge in this country that we cannot accept this?” At this point, he ends the interview, crying, saying he can’t continue. A somber Blitzer says they’ll come back to Mudd, noting, “People say we gotta learn some lessons, unfortunately, lessons are never, never learned.”

Watch the deeply emotional clip below:

Nothing like seeing a grown man and ex-FBI agent cry to send home the message that something is really fucked up, hey?

Although you might feel like you’re intruding on a personal, emotional moment, it’s important to remember that the moment is a “necessary reminder of the toll for Americans in witnessing a seemingly endless series of children’s deaths”:

Americans have become numb to school shootings because to feel the full weight of so much suffering would be too much. But even a TV analyst and terrorism expert, whose job means immersing himself in everyday violence, can’t remain stoic forever.

Could this be the event that results in the tightening, rather than loosening, of gun control?

After Donald Trump’s press briefing, I doubt it:

In times of tragedy, the bonds that sustain us are those of family, faith, community, and country. These bonds are stronger than the forces of hatred and evil – and these bonds grow even stronger in the hours of our greatest need. https://t.co/bu140nscez pic.twitter.com/OoTXMCSexB

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 15, 2018

Because you know Trump’s first act was to make it easier for those with mental health issues to acquire guns, right? Yup, America has a long way to go.

[source:quartz]