Senseless, sad, infuriating. Those are the first words that come to mind about the massacre at the Batman movie showing in Aurora, Colo., on Friday….

No words can wrap around this horror and tie it into a manageable package for a careful study in search of understanding….

When deadly incidents happen, our first inclination, and our first mistake, is to search for meaning. It just is. Life happens. We get knocked down, and all there is to do is get back up and keep moving forward, persevering. Murderous incidents happen with regularity, all over the world. It’s horrible, but it’s life.

Bodies were still inside the Cinemark Theater in Colorado when the usual politicians, lobbyists and pundits were already cranking up their call for more gun control laws.

Making guns illegal doesn’t stop gun deaths. It’s illegal for ordinary people to own guns in Mexico, but in Mexico war with, and among, armed drug cartels has stacked up nearly 50,000 bodies in the past five years. Yet in peaceful Switzerland, virtually every household has a military rifle and a resident trained to use it.

Forget arguing gun control; save your energy for strengthening self-control and for doing selfless good deeds for others. In the end, that’s the only control that works. And it’s the best way to honor the dead in Colorado.

— Distributed by The Associated Press