One hundred thirty-nine. Say the number; let it sink in for a minute. Then consider the number 86. Let that sink in for another minute.

Then consider this: Monday’s shooting at the Covenant School, a private Christian school in the Nashville, Tenn. area, became the 139th mass shooting in 2023, only 86 days into the new year. And remember that a mass shooting is defined as one where four or more people are killed in an incident.

And if you can wrap your mind around those facts, then allow the saddest, most heart-wrenching part of yesterday sink in as well: three 9-year-old children and three staff members, ages 60 and 61, were killed, lives taken at the hands of a woman wielding at least three guns and determined to snuff out the futures of as many children and adults as she could. She was apparently intent on bloody revenge as she shot her way into the school and, gun raised, began to rain down terror.

Some in the school were reportedly as young as 3 years old. All were forced to be a part of a nightmare they will never be able to forget.

No matter where you stand on guns, no matter how you feel about the deficiencies in our nation’s mental health policies, if you have a heart, if you have a conscience, then you know, believe in your gut, that this consistent violence, this horror that keeps happening and grows exponentially year after year MUST STOP!

And it is past time for us, as a nation, to work toward solutions, real solutions that show Americans coming together and saying enough is enough. It is time for our leaders, from local government all the way to the White House, to take a real stand for legislation that will make a difference. It is time for gun manufacturers and organizations like the all powerful NRA to take a seat at the table as workers for the greater good and not their own selfish interests.

It is time this became personal. We shouldn’t just shake our heads, say how sad and go on with our lives simply because this didn’t happen in our back yard, to our children, to our neighbors, to our parents, to our grandchildren.

We should not consider this just another breaking news story, another TV blip about tragedies that happen in other towns, to other people.

What the mayor of Nashville called his city’s “worst day” could just as easily, the next time, become our very worst day.

We don’t want there to be a next time. We don’t want to see our friends and neighbors huddled together, in tears, afraid that their child, their father, their husband, their wife, their grandmother has become a victim of a shooting in one of our schools, one of our churches.

But folks, the sad fact is — it could.

Our schools, our churches, our homes should be the three safest places on the planet. We should be able to go to all three knowing we will be safe, free from harm and danger.

And yet …

We’ve said this from our Opinion page more often now than we can even count, but we will say it again, whispering a prayer that someone will hear us and act: This must stop. We have to work together to make it stop. And we have to support the solutions it will take to slow the spread of violence in our schools, our churches, or any of the other places evil might lurk, just waiting the opportunity to open fire on innocent people just trying to live their lives.

Solutions won’t be easy, will take work and sacrifice, and likely will have to come on many fronts and at great cost. They might make us angry, make us feel as if we’ve lost a little bit of independence along the way.

But it should not make us feel as angry as hearing that more children and more adults have lost their lives senselessly and tragically.

That is what should stir our souls; that is what should make us move to act.