It’s been a while since I had to write about a mass shooting. I was hopeful it would be a while longer before I had to do so again. Unfortunately, that wasn’t meant to be.

As if saying goodbye to Paul Harrell wasn’t sad enough news, it got worse.

At least four people are reported dead at a shooting at a high school in Winder, Georgia, a town about 45 miles from Atlanta.

Nine people were hospitalized with injuries after a shooting at Apalachee High School on Wednesday, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

The agency also confirmed in a post on X that four people were killed and that one person is in custody. It added that “reports that the suspect has been ‘neutralized’ are inaccurate.”

Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith previously said there were ”multiple injuries.”

Other law enforcement sources told CNN there could be up to 30 people who were injured, although it’s unclear how many of the injuries are from gunshot wounds.

The individual in custody is a 14-year-old boy.

CNN reports that someone called the school this morning and said there would be shootings at five high schools today, with Apalachee High being the first. This appears to have been before the shooting took place.

Now, you can take that with as much salt as you like. Right now, everything is very fluid. It just happened and numbers are likely to change as more information becomes available. There is also the typical mad dash to try and break news without any concerns about the validity of it. There may have been a phone call and there may not have been. We’ll have to see if that holds out as things continue.

I will note that this is my home state. This is not the first mass shooting we’ve seen.

It should be noted, however, that Vice President Kamala Harris wasted no time at all in politicizing today’s events.

uring her visit to New Hampshire on Wednesday, Vice President Kamala Harris departed from her prepared remarks to address the Apalachee High School shooting in Winder, Georgia.

Before delivering her planned speech at a rally in Portsmouth, where the Democratic presidential nominee intended to outline her small business proposals, Harris took a moment to reflect on the shooting that left four dead and nine injured.

“It is just outrageous that every day in the United States of America, parents have to send their children to school worried about whether or not their child will come home alive,” Harris said.

She then recounted a personal experience from earlier this year, when she toured a school and spoke with students. Harris recalled asking how many of them had participated in active shooter drills. To her dismay, nearly every student raised their hand.

“They are sitting in a classroom where they should be fulfilling their God-given potential, yet some part of their big, beautiful minds is worried about a shooter breaking through the door,” Harris said. “It doesn’t have to be this way.”

She’s right, it doesn’t.

However, when CNN tries to argue that we’ve had 1.5 mass shootings per day when we’ve had nothing of the sort, it’s not difficult to see where at least part of the problem is. 

And let’s be real here, more kids are failing to make it home after school because of traffic accidents and drug overdoses than shootings at schools. These are terrible, but when you look at the number of kids in the total number of schools, you see that most students will never be touched by anything like what just transpired in Winder.

Again, please remember that this is the information I have right here and now. That could be very different information later this evening or in the morning. We will continue to monitor the situation and will jump knee deep into the inevitable debate that will follow.