13 Lives in 12 Minutes - The Tragedy on River Road

On September 6, 1949, in just 12 minutes, 13 lives were lost to a mass shooter on River Road in Camden, NJ. Unlike today, mass shootings were not a regular event that was normalized on the news. In a post World War II era, automatic guns were relatively new and held mostly for military use, not often seen in public. However, on this day, the mundane activities of a Tuesday morning were interrupted by gun fire as a World War II veteran walked down the street that he lived on and fired upon his own neighbors' homes and businesses. This case has been coined as America's first mass shooting, and the shooter, as the first "lone wolf"type shooter.These terms may be common today, but this type of event was unprecendented at the time. However it will go to show that more than 70 years later, our country has not made much progress in our prevention of these types of such occurrences and the devastation that it brings to not only the victims, but families of the victims, the survivors and the communities at large. References & Resources:Murder in the Neighborhood by Ellen Greenhttps://www.northjersey.com/picture-gallery/news/new-jersey/2019/08/28/photos-howard-unruh-shoots-16-sept-6-1949-camden/2065185001/https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/story-first-mass-murder-us-history-180956927/