The shooting in Aurora, CO dominated the news this weekend, and not just in America.  It was world news.  The tragedy reminded me of a recurring question people have been pondering for at least a decade: why are so many of these incidents happening now?

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence reports that the United States has experienced an average of around 20 mass shootings each year since 2005.

There was the rampage at Virginia Tech in 2007 that left 32 people dead.  Only three days prior to the Aurora shooting, 17 people were injured in Tuscaloosa, Alabama after a gunman opened fire in a downtown bar, and one week before that, three people were killed and two were injured after another rampage erupted during a Dover, Delaware soccer tournament.  The Fort Hood massacre occurred in 2009, two years after Virginia Tech, with 13 people losing their lives in that event.

The evidence is pretty clear that we are having far more mass shooting these days than we had in the past.  You might want to make the natural jump to guns, as that is what the media will tell us to do.  Guns are easy to blame.  Relatively easy to get, guns make good culprits.  But if people were killing people by driving into crowds with Chevy Volts, I suspect the media would not blame the Volt.

It should come as no surprise that the rise in mass killing sprees in America is in direct proportion to the rise in liberalism in American politics.

The old America was about hope.  Kids were taught that they could do anything, be anything.  And though America has never been nor will ever be perfect, she has always found a way to allow everybody to thrive.  All it took was a person willing to capture the American spirit, and have dogged determination to pursue the American Dream.

Over the years, liberalism has destroyed that spirit.  Today, liberalism offers an easy answer to everything, and government is that answer.  Government will help you through all crises, even those it creates.  Government should educate you, feed you, and make sure you have everything except the confidence to do for yourself -- which is why government promises what even God doesn't.  Government promises you deliverance from everything, including yourself.

Such is the definition of liberalism, which always circles back to hopelessness and despair.  What happens when somebody gets that free education and can't find a job?  What happens when that person who got that government-mandated mortgage loses his home?  What happens when unemployment insurance runs out, when there is no health care available, when there is no food on the table?

These were the same problems many Americans faced in the past. If you dropped out of school, so be it.  My grandfather had to leave school in the 6^th grade, because his family of 19 brothers and sisters needed him to work.  He died well into his 80s a happy man, educated with "common sense," and remarkably farther along in life than his parents.

My grandparents stressed education, but they understood that it was a guarantee of nothing.  They made sure that I had the experiences to understand that life would throw me curveballs, and that I should look for the seams.

I remember how fond my grandparents were of a trip they took to Tijuana with my grandfather's brother.  They had saved for years to go.  As poor as my grandparents were, they recognized that even the poorest blacks had it better than the poorest Mexican.  They talked of staying in a hotel that was so bad, the Mexican man in broken English offered them additional women in the presence of my grandmother and great-aunt.  They decided to upgrade just a bit.

They spoke often of that trip, and fondly so.  But what I always got out of it was that they were so happy get back to America.  Which is to say, the reason why there were fewer shootings back in the day is because people, all people, felt great about being Americans.  Being American meant something; it still does.  If you don't believe me, go to an immigration hearing where citizenship is granted and speak to the new Americans.  You won't find a single one of them who would consider shooting up anything, except fireworks to celebrate their new beginnings.

The left wants to capitalize on this tragic shooting, and they say gun control could have prevented this.  Not a chance.  People intent on killing kill.

Liberalism is the killer.  Liberalism kills dreams and offers no hope.  The failure of liberalism is what drives men to madness.

Kevin Jackson is a best-selling author and blogger, and he has a daily radio show.