[PghBaldy]

It DID happen 50 years ago, and 75 years ago, and 100 years ago. I have seen thousands of pages of old newspapers - mass killings are not new. The older cases are hidden in a way, since the records are analog and therefore harder to find. They are there. Google News Archive. Here are a few I just found while searching said Archives with words "maniac shoots"

1901 http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=WSQiAAAAIBAJ&sjid=36MFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1877%2C2877636

1908 http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=I8VUAAAAIBAJ&sjid=uI8DAAAAIBAJ&pg=5782%2C4833890

1910: http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=IbEgAAAAIBAJ&sjid=VmkFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1364%2C549770

1926 http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=vg9PAAAAIBAJ&sjid=n0wDAAAAIBAJ&pg=2737%2C406813

1930 http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=bpAxAAAAIBAJ&sjid=y00DAAAAIBAJ&pg=3442%2C7174612

[dsc]

I was unclear, sorry. I did not mean to say that there were no mass murders previously; I meant to say that there has not been a cluster of so many mass murders in such a short period of time.

When I was a boy, we all shook our heads in wonderment at the phenomenon of “running amok,” which was known to happen in Indonesia, a place so far away that it might as well have been a fairy tale. Nothing similar was happening here.