Anderson Cooper offered up a sobering analysis of gun violence in the United States on Friday.
“The sad fact is … that mass shootings have become so common it may soon be hard for one not to fall on the anniversary of another,” lamented the CNN anchor, while reflecting on Thursday’s mass shooting at a FedEx warehouse in Indianapolis in which eight people were killed.
“There is no way in good conscience to use the word ‘good evening’ tonight,” Cooper began the segment. “Although, there are many words to choose from. ‘Mournful,’ ‘tearful’ and yes, as a country, ‘shameful.’ ‘Good’ is simply not one of them.”
“Countless more tonight are living the nightmare of losing someone close, and the toll extends beyond the victims and next of kin,” he continued. “This we know from experience. The shock waves, they ripple out over time and distance.”
Cooper then showed a map detailing mass shootings in the last month alone, reeling off the killings one by one. The map “doesn’t do justice to the story, doesn’t capture the horror, doesn’t capture wounds and the deaths of so many Americans,” he said, concluding that “barring drastic changes or a miracle” the warehouse shooting “will not be the last.”
Watch the video here: