A series of shootings that occurred across the country over the span of a week left 36 people dead, 68 injured, and millions saddened, but left relatively unsurprised as this deadly trend continues.

America was given little time to recover from a shooting that killed four at the Gilroy Garlic Festival before another shooting at an El Paso Walmart killed 22 people and injured an additional 24. Only 13 hours after the attack in El Paso, a gunman in Dayton, Ohio killed 10 and injured 27.

“When I first heard about the shootings I was obviously very saddened like so many other people,” said Social Studies teacher Cory Nelson. ”I was planning on going to Outside Lands, which was only two weeks after the Gilroy Garlic Festival attack. I emailed the people in charge to make sure that security was being heightened in response, and they reassured me that the proper precautions were being made.”

The perpetrator of the El Paso attack seemed to be motivated by his alleged white-supremacist views, and reportedly told investigators that he “wanted to kill as many Mexicans as possible,” a motive that was seemingly shared by the Gilroy shooter.

The Dayton shooter, on the other hand, was a leftist that supported the domestic terror organization “Antifa” and earlier attacks on Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities.

Many Democratic presidential candidates were quick to blame the shootings on President Donald Trump. New Jersey Senator Cory Booker bluntly said in news reports, “Donald Trump is responsible for this. He is responsible because he is failing to condemn white supremacy and see it as it is, which is responsible for such a significant amount of the terrorist attacks.” This statement came prior to multiple occasions in which Trump had denounced white supremacy.

Booker’s opponent in the Democratic primaries, Congressman Robert Francis O’Rourke, who is from El Paso, also blamed the president for the shootings in his hometown. O’Rourke has recently sparked controversy for supporting mandatory gun buybacks, a policy that other Democrats have not yet dared to openly support.

When asked at the Democratic debate if he was proposing taking away the firearms of the American people, O’Rourke responded with “Hell yes, we’re going to take away your AR-15, your AK-47.”

O’Rourke also called the AR- 15 a “weapon of war,” despite the model being specifically sold for civilian use.

“I definitely don’t think more guns is the answer to the problem, but I don’t exactly agree with mandatory buybacks,” said Nelson.

“I do think that we should run voluntary gun buybacks so that people who don’t feel comfortable with their firearms can turn them in. I also think that we need to seriously invest in mental health programs to give help to people who might be considering violent acts.”

President Trump proposed building new mental health facilities to help treat people with complicated mental conditions and curb future shootings. Mental institutions have become less and less prevalent since the 1950s, reducing from 550,000 hospital beds for the mentally to 33,000 in 2016.

“We don’t have those institutions anymore, and people can’t get proper care,” said the president to his supporters at a rally shortly after the shootings.