2 shootings, 2 states, minutes apart − a trauma psychiatrist explains how exposure to shootings changes all of us

On Sept. 10, 2025, the nation’s attention was riveted by the fatal shooting of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk on a college campus in Utah. At nearly the exact same time, a state away − in Colorado − an active shooting was underway on a high school campus in a sleepy mountain town, leaving two teens in critical condition and the shooter, a fellow student, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot.

While differing in context, these events share devastating commonalities that will…