It was, November 13, a Sunday like so many others on college campuses all over the country. Students were walking to and from class buildings, some tossing frisbees and playing games on the quad, and some on field trips off campus. It was that kind of Sunday on the campus of the University of Virginia—until it wasn’t. 

As a group of students, many on the UVA football team, returned from an off-campus trip, the bus carrying them was riddled with bullets. Three students, all on the football team, were killed and at least two others were seriously wounded. Charlottesville Police identified the shooter as UVA student Christopher Jones, Jr. There are few additional details available and the motive is not yet known.

Shootings have become very common on college campuses. A notable beginning to this trend is the University of Texas–Austin tragedy. On Monday, August 1st, 1966, Charles Whitman climbed the Bell Tower at the University of Texas-Austin and killed 16 students and wounded 31 more. Since the UT Austin shooting in 1966, there have been at least ten separate mass shootings on college and university campuses. The worst campus shooting was also in Virginia at Virginia Tech University. Thirty-three students and faculty were shot and killed and another 17 were injured.

None of the campus shootings are connected to one another. Some were committed by current students, some by former students, and some by people with no obvious connection to the college. There have been a few different motives as well. A few of the shooters were targeting specific people, some had a grudge against the schools, but some were just random without an obvious motive. Regardless of the reasons, all of them are tragic and even though every college has security and all large Universities have their own police departments, they are basically small cities and thus, are not immune from crimes including terrible incidents like these. While so many high school seniors are looking forward to happy Mondays on a college campus next year, the best way to make sure they are all happy Mondays will be to look out for one another – just like we always do.