It’s easy to shrug our shoulders at reports of shootings and attacks. Because they happen so frequently, they can become merely background noise in our lives, leading to complacency.

“What can we do?”

“At least it can’t – or won’t – happen here.”

But a report today grabbed my attention: “Two dead, one injured in shooting at Pearl Harbor base.”

And it’s not the first time an active shooter has assaulted a military installation.

Two days later, four were killed at a Navy base in Florida.
In 2013 a shooter killed 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard in Washington, D.C.
The most infamous attack may be the shooting in Ft. Hood, Texas, that killed 13 people in 2009. (You can read about it and other attacks here).

These events shatter our sense of complacency and let the wind out of “it can’t happen here” denialism.

If it can happen there, it can happy anywhere
If this many military bases can be lethally attacked in the United States, then wherever we are, it can happen here.