A party for county health workers was in full swing on December 2 when men dressed in black masks and tactical gear turned the occasion into a deadly scene. When it was all over, they had killed fourteen and wounded seventeen. Residents of San Bernardino, the town this atrocity was committed in, were ordered by police to stay indoors. Filled with fright, no one dared to disobey the orders.

Four hours after the shooting took place, police chased an SUV thought to be holding two suspects. Authorities and the men in the vehicle then traded gunfire, as a TV station overheard. After the gunfire ceased, two suspects, one man and one woman, were dead. Their motives for this shooting were unclear. The assistant director of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office, David Bowdich, said they didn’t know if this was a terrorist incident, but they hadn’t ruled out terrorism as a motive.

A senior official believed one of the shooters may have been attending the party. He thinks the subject got into an argument and returned with companions, and they were all armed. One of the suspected shooters was a man named Syed Farook, and records show a man named Syed R. Farook was employed by the health department, meaning he could have been at the party previously. Another confirmed shooter was 27-year-old Tashfeen Malik, the wife of Farook.

Denise Peraza, a witness at the scene, told her relatives, “Everyone dropped to the floor. The guys opened fire for 30 seconds, randomly, then paused to reload and began firing again.”

The shooting shut down the immediate area. All county schools, city government buildings, and courthouses were on lockdown so the police could search for the gunmen.

This event brings up a grim reminder: the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting. In fact, this is the deadliest mass shooting since the Elementary school went under attack in 2012.

With the holiday season so close, there couldn’t be a more devastating time to lose a loved one. It’s a sad observation that the number of shootings go up during the holiday season, as people are missing loved ones and losing their fight against depression. It’s a good reminder that we need to be thankful for all we have, as we never know when our last day will be.