At a police press briefing after a shooter Monday in a Nashville school murdered three children and three adults, an Illinois woman stepped in front of the cameras and took over the podium.

Ashbey Beasley, the Washington Post reported, had fled to safety with her 6-year-old son at a July 4th parade last summer in Highland Park, Ill., when a gunman opened fire on the crowd, killing seven people.

She was in Nashville this week and near the Covenant School shooting scene to support her friend, whose older son was killed in a 2018 shooting at a Waffle House restaurant in Tennessee, and whose younger son was in a nearby school that went into lockdown Monday. Two women, three mass shootings that connected them.

That’s what it has come to. The Associated Press counts the toll of children and adults killed since Columbine in 1999 in incidents of four or more deaths at schools and colleges at 175. That does not include the shooters. Nor does it account for deaths in restaurants, night clubs, workplaces, houses of worship, ballrooms, public transit or other targeted places.

Beasley asked the assembled journalists a simple question.

“Aren’t you guys tired of covering this?”

Yes. Yes, we are.

Journalists are tired of it.

Police officers and paramedics and EMTs are tired of it.

Doctors and nurses are tired of it.

Teachers are tired of it.

Parents are tired of it.

Children are terrified of it.

More than tired -- the people hurt, bereft, involved in or threatened by these incidents are incredulous. Why are there still people in office who don’t show any sign of being tired of it?

It is no longer possible, if it ever was, for anyone to miss the connection between readily available assault weapons and the killing of innocent children and adults by someone willing to die themselves. It has become clear that there is virtually always a way in for an assailant who is willing to break windows, map hallways and enter shooting.

The nightmare of violence can last for as little as 15 minutes, as Monday’s attack did, because the weapons are so fatally efficient. It takes so little time for so many to die and so many other lives to be shattered.

We have the evidence that there is no foolproof way to keep children and educators safe from invasion and assault. How can we acknowledge that and not act upon it?

This is the question we have asked before and must, like Ashbey Beasley, continue to demand be answered: Aren’t you tired of this?

Pro-gun elected officials may sincerely offer sympathy after a mass shooting, but if they are indeed sincere they are also in denial. Grieving families and emotionally wounded survivors don’t need blatant hypocrisy such as that shown by U.S. Rep. Andrew Ogles, who represents the Tennessee district that includes the Covenant School. He may truly be “heartbroken” by the deaths of these specific children and educators. But how does that fit with the way his family celebrated Christmas just over a year ago, by posing for their card in front of a decorated tree while holding assault rifles?

It is hard to see peace and goodwill in that message.

The children and teachers at Covenant School, like those at Sandy Hook, Robb Elementary, Marjorie Stoneman Douglas and Columbine, are casualties in a conflict that makes some Americans expendable in the eyes of pro-gun, pro-NRA elected officials.

Those children of Connecticut, Texas, Florida and Colorado will never make a political contribution. They did not live long enough to choose sides or decide whether to vote for a politician who thinks assault weapons are a guaranteed constitutional right. They have lost life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Like Ms. Beasley, how can we keep quiet?

The Day editorial board meets with political, business and community leaders to formulate editorial viewpoints. It is composed of President and Publisher Timothy Dwyer, Executive Editor Izaskun E. Larraneta, Owen Poole, copy editor, and Lisa McGinley, retired deputy managing editor. The board operates independently from The Day newsroom.