Platinum recording artist Jason Aldean’s set was tragically interrupted at the Route 91 Harvest Country Music Festival in Las Vegas Oct. 1 when a gunman opened fire on the crowd, killing 59 people and injuring roughly 600 more.

It is a sad reality we live in as Americans when we are not safe at the movies, schools, churches, and now music concerts. Just five months after the Manchester, England attack during an Ariana Grande concert, we now have an even deadlier attack happening here in the United State. It is extremely terrifying and disheartening to know that this is something that is beginning to happen so often, especially at a place that is meant to be about fun and the enjoyment of music.

In these troubling times we can only have faith that a solution will arise and we no longer have massacres like this occurring. We hope that everyone will be able to persevere and fight through the fear that this tragedy may bring because music is an art that is supposed to be about healing and enjoyment, not chaos and destruction.

Individuals of all ages and backgrounds have developed strong opinions since the attack.

“We have been facing a lot of mass shootings in recent years, but the Las Vegas shooting is a whole new kind of awful,” said Kutztown University student Talia Mingey. “I was beyond horrified to see the videos of what one man could do to an innocent crowd with enough hatred in his heart.

“It is domestic terrorism plain and simple. My frustrations come when I watch how the world reacts to acts of terror. Somehow, I’m still surprised at our country’s ability to deny the obvious solutions to the increasingly devastating problem of mass shootings and domestic terrorism.

“I do not own a gun,” Mingey continued, “but I do believe in the citizens’ rights to own guns to a degree. I do not believe an average citizen will ever have cause to own an automatic weapon made for killing as many human beings as possible in the shortest time possible.

“How is it that we don’t blink twice when someone buys these killing machines? A weapon that can cause just as many, if not more, deaths that a bomb should be treated as such. Why are we separating these weapons as two different things based on a document written before they could have even imagined something that devastating being invented.

“We have updated the constitution and fixed the holes created by modernization before. Why can’t we call a spade a spade and see that our founding fathers couldn’t have possibly predicted this kind of problem when they included the right to bear arms?

“As a 22-year-old student, mass shootings are a very real threat and there has been more money put into trainings centered on how to react to a campus shooter than there have been in finding a solution to the problem. I’m scared to go to crowded events. Nowhere is safe anymore with these weapons out there. We will never be able to have security at events with the easy access to guns.

“Every other country in the world has recognized the core issue, and it’s time this country ges on board. We need to start conversations and defuse these bombs all over our country.

“Millions of thoughts and prayers don’t seem to be saving these people dying every month. Let’s look to action and not let one more man, woman, or child die without saying we tried to save them. Please, let’s just try.”

Dr. Robert Ryan, Kutztown University Psychology professor, shared his response.

“It’s such a tragedy that these things keep happening, and they seem to be gradually getting worse and worse,” Ryan said. “I can’t imagine how terrible it would feel to either be at that event and get shot at or be one of the loved ones of someone who was even terrified by the event much less wounded or even killed.

“It is hard to imagine why people do things like that. The police don’t seem to know, they don’t seem to be able to pin down a motive at this point. They are doing their best by interviewing the shooter’s girlfriend, but she may not know that much.”

How do we identify the mentally ill before this sort of thing happens?

“Only if the mental illness is very obvious, but it may not be,” Ryan said. “It could be that a person has an obvious mental illness and either is or has been in treatment and has been diagnosed.

“I am not familiar with the procedures for a background check, but I would imagine that it is possible to find out if a person had an actual diagnosed mental illness, and I am not even sure if that is possible because medical records are considered private. But the law may be such that they may be able to find that out.

“But here’s the thing: just because a person has a mental illness does not mean that they are dangerous. There are some small proportions of people who have paranoid schizophrenia and I believe it has come out in some cases where there has been tragic events, just like a murder suicide, the person who committed the crime had been suffering from such schizophrenia. But there are many people who have the same disorder who have no intention of committing any kind of crime.

“In a free and open society, we cannot use that as a reason to pre-emptively detain anyone unless there is more to indicate that they may be dangerous,” Ryan continued. “The other thing is, a person can commit a crime like this without having a mental illness. The connection between a terrible crime like this and mental illness is probably not as strong as we might think it is.

“Human beings hate uncertainty, especially when it comes to our safety. We’d like to be able to know that there is something that could be done to prevent the kinds of crimes that we have seen. As far as direct actions, things that would be kind of obvious that would come right to the top of an average person’s mind, I do not think we can take any of those direct actions without causing some further negative unintended consequences.

“Meaning, if we empowered the police to go around and just investigate people and find out if they have guns and if they have mental illness and then preemptively restrain them if the combination occurs, there will be so many innocent people that would be caught up in that terrible restriction of freedoms that people wouldn’t be willing to do it.

“Unfortunately, that leaves us in a position where we are all vulnerable to just a random irrational act of violence like this. People do tend to overestimate the likelihood that they would be a victim of this kind of violence. But that doesn’t make us feel any better. The chances of any individual person suddenly being in a situation where there is an active shooter committing one of these random violent acts are tiny, miniscule, but the problem is, if it does happen then the consequences are so great.”

Army Specialist XXXXXX Jimenez is familiar with the weapons used in Las Vegas.

“What happened in Las Vegas was a terrible tragedy, and I give my condolences to all the families that lost someone and my prayers for the ones still struggling to stay alive or dealing with injuries and trauma. I do want to thank every brave individual that helped another to make sure they were okay as well as the ones that stayed or went back to help in any capacity.

“When it comes to the weapons debate, I’ve learned it is never the tool, but it is the individual. Most people focus on the device but never the user. A computer is just a computer until a hacker decides to use it to get your information and steal the money from your bank account. This is the same with a carpenter. He’s a hard-working man until he makes that choice to use the hammer against another man to harm him for whatever reason he felt justified to do so.

“No one could have foreseen this happening. Being an Army National Guardsmen and in the security field on the civilian side, even with our extensive training, we can’t prevent everything,” Jimenez said. “We are always working to get better and are always ready to react and do what needs to be done.

“The worst part is people actually want to do these things and harm others for unknown reasons. All I can say is this: I hope we learn from this so it never happens again.”