I live in Omaha, Nebraska about three miles from the mall where the shootings took place this week.

How sad for all those victimized by a troubled young man.

My heartfelt condolences go out to all those affected by this man's senseless act.

Numerous questions will be asked about the circumstances and causes. I do not intend to repeat them here, with perhaps two exceptions.

First, one wonders how many other ticking human time bombs there are out there. This one was a relatively small one in comparison to Virginia Tech's incident. But how many others are out there suffering from mental illness with access to firearms.

Second, (and this won't make our evangelical friends happy), how many more ticking human time bombs would there be if abortion were not allowed in this country? This was a higly disturbed young man derived from a dysfunctional family. State programs seem to have been overwhelmed with so many cases they were unable to properly help the Omaha shooter. How much more overwhelmed would these programs be if more unwanted children were brought into this world? And how willing are we to pay the taxes to support such programs? The answer, of course, is "not very".

I was watching a documentary yesterday about the late Senator Barry Goldwater. Goldwater's opinion of the late Reverand Jerry Fallwell was that Fallwell deserved a swift kick in the ass for introducing social issues into the political process. We concluded earlier this week that Ross Perot was right about an issue from the past. We think Goldwater was, too.