After a weekend of violence, let's think less about ourselves and more about others. Before waxing polemic, give real thought to the victims of these crimes and their survivors. Despite what any politician says, let's keep them in our thoughts and prayers. Only love conquers hate.

The hateful and deadly weekend began in Chicago, where Friday night launched the city's most violent weekend of 2019. Gunfire killed seven and injured an additional 52 by the end of Sunday.

Meanwhile, a deranged killer walked into a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, early Saturday and began shooting customers with a military style high-powered rifle. As of press time, 22 were dead and 24 others injured. Police say they arrested a 21-year-old man who told them he wanted to shoot as many Mexicans as possible.

Sunday, as routine killings continued in Chicago, a suspect armed with a .223 caliber rifle shot people outside a bar in Dayton, Ohio. The shooter injured 27 and killed 10, including his sister. Police shot and killed the man in less than 30 seconds from the moment he began the killing spree.

Our country's social problems are deep-rooted, complicated and sometimes seem helpless. There will be no easy fixes. Families are increasingly torn apart by divorce, disloyalty, finances, mental health and substance abuse. Identity politics all along the political spectrum has Americans dividing themselves and demonizing other demographics, abandoning the melting pot concept we fought so long and hard to exalt. We have hateful white supremacists, other racists and general purpose haters willing to give their lives for one final statement and a twisted sense of glory.

We live among a small segment of angry people with shortages of love, surpluses of hatred and little reverence for life.

Through it all, we see glimpses of the real United States — the country so many break into, even in the wake of deadly, high-profile violence.

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CNN anchor Chris Cuomo highlighted this when he found El Paso shooting victim Christopher Grant in an El Paso hospital bed.

No one could encounter Grant without seeing the antithesis of a sociopathic active shooter motivated by hate. Grant, a 50-year-old African American, was at Walmart to help his mother shop when the shots rang out. He is saddened by the shooter's reported motive, saying Mexicans are some of the kindest, most care-giving people in our country.

"My mom, she's a gun-roving grandma," Grant said. "She carries a .38 Smith & Wesson with a built-in scope.�� She carries it everywhere."

Except Walmart. Grant, a trained shooter, ran to his mother to grab the gun. She had left it at home, thinking she would never need it during a routine shopping trip.

Grant saw the racist killer shooting men, women and children. He heard people praying in Spanish, begging "Por favor, no." With or without his mother's gun, Grant wanted the killer to focus on him. So he grabbed bottles from shelves and threw them at the shooter.

The killer responded by shooting Grant.

"It was like someone put a hand grenade in my back and pulled the trigger," Grant said.

A humble man, he insists many American men would risk their lives to try stopping a monster. His dad brought him up that way, and he assumes lots of other dads tell their kids to put others first without regard for race, religion, creed or other human traits. He feels terrible for surviving while others died.

"It's not fair. He was killing innocent children," Grant said, breaking down. "Why would you? How much hate is in your heart?"

Nearly incapacitated, Grant escaped Walmart and immediately encountered his "guardian angel." She was an off-duty Customs and Border Patrol agent about to enter Walmart to shop.

"She did the same thing as mom. 'I'm just going to Walmart; I don't need my gun,' " Grant said.

The border agent put Grant into a pickup, bandaged him and stayed with him until he made it to the emergency room.

Grant and the border agent are typical Americans. They care about others and will sacrifice for them. They probably hate no one.

We can control guns, secure buildings, arm ourselves defensively, strengthen mental health and punish all active shooters like foreign terrorists. We can and should respond to these shootings with carefully crafted policies intended to reduce them.

In doing so, we must manage expectations. Public policy won't make a dent for generations to come. We must find a way — through culture, religion, politics, media and more — to counter the growing epidemic of hate. Only by spreading color-blind love will we conquer racism, supremacy and all varieties of violent crimes that are rooted in hate.

REPRINTED FROM THE COLORADO SPRINGS GAZETTE

Photo credit: ElasticComputeFarm at Pixabay