I feel the need to write about the Las Vegas shooting. But what could I say? There have been so many mass shootings in this nation in the last few years, what could I say that hasn't already been said?

On Tuesday, I went to a prayer meeting on campus for the shooting. We held hands, and students prayed for healing, miracles, unity, compassion. Some prayed for their uncles, their parents, their friends, their hometown of Las Vegas. I didn't know the girl next to me, and I don't know her story, but I felt her hand shaking violently in mine, and I couldn't do anything but lift her up to God.

With every piece of breaking news about a mass shooting, I expect the effect in me to be greater and greater desensitization and distance, but instead I feel nearer and get increasingly more afraid.

I am afraid.

At this point, it's not a crazy hypothetical to wonder if I'll ever be impacted by a mass shooting. Now, I'm certain it's inevitable. I'm just not sure when it will happen or how closely I will be impacted.

When the Las Vegas shooting was happening, I was at a concert in Seattle. The next morning, my mom texted me asking when I was leaving and how the concert was, adding: "Glad you weren't in Las Vegas."

It reminded me of my freshman year at GFU when there was a shooting at a college in Roseburg and several friends and family members sent me texts to make sure me and everyone I knew were all okay.

At this point, I'm fairly certain I'll get a text like that in the future and my answer won't get to be, "Everyone is okay."

I keep involuntarily imagining a fun day out in Portland with my best friends or a trip to a movie theater or a regular day walking to class. How would a shooting feel in that moment? What would I hear? See? How could I save my friends? How would I feel knowing in that moment I may never see them again? What kind of fear would run through my body? What burning resentment would I feel toward America? What desperate prayer would break my lips?

I'm not going to bother bringing up gun restrictions or any other propositions to fix this issue. I don't claim to have the one correct answer. That's not what people will listen to anyway.

But do think about this: I am 20, the top four deadliest shootings in America have happened in my lifetime, and I can recall breaking news of each one: Las Vegas, Orlando Pulse, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook. Las Vegas broke the old death toll record, and I know that record will be broken again soon because no one is going to prevent it from happening.

Mourning for those hurt, killed and impacted is entirely appropriate. But we have to start to think that it's not quite enough. Isolated events are rightly addressed with a, "How could this happen? We need to grieve." But two hundred seventy-three mass shootings have happened in America so far in 2017. It's not isolated anymore. It's not an accident, it's not a fluke. It's not even a surprise. It's a pattern. It's uniquely American.

Over 500 people were shot by an American citizen last week. What if I was one of them? What if you were? You have to think about it, because if we continue in inaction, apathy and division, the question might not get to be hypothetical anymore.