When tragic events, like Tuesday’s mass shooting at the Navy Yard in Washington, happen, the pain is sometimes reduced by thinking the incident occurred somewhere far away and to people we don’t know.

Hearing of another mass shooting, which Americans experience with troubling regularity, some will say to themselves, “That was in Washington, or Colorado or Connecticut.” Putting some physical distance between ourselves and the senseless tragedy is, in a way, an inoculation, from feeling the pain.

This week’s shooting in Washington, D.C., might have taken place several hundred miles away from Butler County, but one of the victims, Frank Kohler, was from Zelienople. He attended Seneca Valley High School and then Slippery Rock University. In other words, Kohler was one of us.

That brings the tragedy home in a way that makes it more than just a sad story on the national news. It goes beyond follow-up stories that will backtrack through the shooter’s life, trying to explain what led him to kill a dozen people or how it could have been prevented.

For people in Zelienople and beyond, Kohler’s killing brings shock, pain and disbelief.

Kohler’s friends remembered him fondly. Some of his family here is now in Maryland to support his family there.

He was also remembered by his co-workers, friends and fellow Rotary Club members, who said he was a gifted leader and hard worker.

For his wife, two college-aged daughters, and many friends in Maryland and here, life will never be the same.

Across the state, a Philadelphia newspaper wrote about another victim of Tuesday’s shooting who graduated from a local high school in the late 1970s and went on to attend the Naval Academy and then serve 22 years in the Navy.

Across the country, the 12 people killed in Tuesday’s shooting spree leave behind family and friends grieving and asking how this can happen — and why.

There will again be some national debate over the easy availability of guns in the U.S. and the failure of the mental health system to identify and treat Aaron Alexis, the Navy Yard shooter, who had been struggling with paranoia and had had past run-ins with the law, including two involving guns. There are questions about how he kept the security clearance that allowed him to enter the Navy Yard grounds easily and with no security check that might have revealed the gun in his car.

Most of the political class in Washington will talk about the pain caused to family and friends and will honor those killed in the latest mass shooting. But the response so far seems to be a familiar sad shrug of the shoulders and acceptance that “these things happen.”

The families and friends of the victims might wonder why such shootings happen much more often in the U.S. than in other countries. Maybe some will get involved and try to bring about some changes.

But public policy or politics are probably not on the minds of the family and friends of Frank Kohler or the anguished family and friends of the 11 other people killed this week in Washington. They will mourn and then try to find ways to live their lives, which for some will never be the same.

The mass shooting at the Navy Yard is another in a string of names including Columbine, Virginia Tech, Aurora, Fort Hood and Newtown.

The familiar shock, repeated after each mass shooting, is heartfelt and the sadness is genuine. But many people wonder why nothing is done to try to make mass shootings less frequent, so they are as rare as in most other countries.