Yes, I'm afraid there were. Notable ones(1) include:

2017(2)

• Cincinnati nightclub (2 dead / 16 wounded)
• Northpark elementary (3/1)
• Mississippi (8/0)
• Orlando factory (6/0)
• Congressional baseball game (1/6)
• San Francisco UPS (4/5)
• Little Rock nightclub (0/28)
• Las Vegas country music festival (61/411)

2018

• Marshall high school (2/16)
• Parkland / Stoneman Douglas high school (17/17)
• Santa Fe high school (10/14)
• Pittsburgh synagogue (11/7)
• Thousand Oaks (13/12)

2019

• Virginia Beach (13/5)
• El Paso Wal-Mart (23/23)
• Dayton (10/27)
• West Texas (8/25)

2020

• DC block party (1/21)

Now, this isn't all of them, not by a longshot; just the ones I remember hearing about in the national news.

I'm a pretty staunch 2A supporter, but even this gives me pause.

(1) Meaning, they made national headlines.
(2) Source: [en.wikipedia.org]

@Alysandir Thanks, I don’t follow the news, especially mainstream. All tragic of course but I firmly believe if more responsible people were armed that these incidents wouldn’t be as deadly. No amount of gun control will stop nut jobs from carrying out their plan.

@73jazzbass

All tragic of course but I firmly believe if more responsible people were armed that these incidents wouldn’t be as deadly. No amount of gun control will stop nut jobs from carrying out their plan.

Man, this is such a hard topic for me. On the one hand, I consider myself to be a pretty strong 2A proponent, although there are certain things I do bend on because I do believe that common sense has to have some effect on the letter of the law.(1)

Do I think that mentally incapacitated or emotionally agitated people - or for that matter, people who've proven they are prone to violence - should have unfettered access to firearms? Absolutely not. To me, that's the rough equivalent of issuing a driver's license to a blind person; it's a recipe for disaster.

The problem is how do you prove that someone is going to be a responsible gun owner? You really can't. At least not as things are right now. How do you tell the difference between the gutless blowhard that talks a great game and the quiet sociopath that no one would ever suspect?

Do I think that if more responsible people were armed these incidents wouldn't be as deadly?

[slow exhale]

Heinlein wrote that an armed society is a polite society, but Heinlein was also a big believer in things like personal responsibility and military service as a requirement for citizenship. He would be appalled at the state of the world today. We have a military today that's fixated more on inclusivity and social justice than they are about military readiness.(2) We have a civilian population that increasingly believes masculinity is inherently toxic and that the color of your skin plays a larger role in who you are than what you say and do.

So...no. I agree with you in principle that in another age an armed society might stop tragedies like this, but I no longer trust in the ability of the average person to act with a clear-head in a crisis. I would be very afraid of the average person getting lost in an adrenaline rush and perhaps doing more harm that good. No, that's not a good answer, I realize. But when we live in an era where society doesn't even trust its law enforcement - people who've trained for such encounters - to make life or death decisions, I see little good coming out of the average civilian taking on that responsibility.

We need better tools, better training, better screening, and I don't know where these things are going to come from.

(1) For example, although the the 2A doesn't prohibit it, I think common sense is that you don't give a loaded gun to a 6 year-old to play with. The Founders wrote the Constitution in the frame of mind that "the people" were not inherently stupid or irresponsible, so they didn't have to spell every little thing out.
(2) If you require more maintenance medication than conditions that would have you declared unfit for military service - such as Type 2 diabetes - then I'm going to say that you have no business being declared fit for service in order to check a diversity checkbox. They boot people out for sleep apnea, but somehow, regularly taking estrogen, antiandrogen, progestogen, and GnRH modulators is cool.

@Alysandir

You can't fight lawlessness by ignoring the law (Constitution).

Almost all the existing gun legislation is unconstitutional making this a lawless society by definition.

@wolfhnd

I'm certainly open to suggestion.

@Alysandir

If you want gun reform amend the Constitution and if you don't have the votes to do that find a lawful way to address the problem. It's that simple.