Like most Americans, we were both saddened and horrified by last Wednesday night’s deadly shooting at the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. It is beyond imagination that a young, misguided man could sit among worshippers for approximately an hour and then open fire, killing the majority of those same worshippers.

Like we were after Newtown, Aurora, Virginia Tech, Huntsville and Columbine, we are left asking why and wondering how we can stop the senseless violence that so often rears its ugly head in our nation – a nation that, among other civilized nations in our world, seems particularly prone to such violence.