It’s hard to find words when a tragedy happens along the lines of last week’s shooting in Kalkaska County.

Words are insufficient. They can’t convey the horror, the sorrow when a child dies — much less at the hands of another child.

That both victim and shooter were 5 years old only adds to the heaviness, the weight of all that wasted life, the unimaginable weight of what the surviving child will carry.

At 5 years old, you learn to write your name. You can stand on one foot, maybe skip a little. You can count to 10.

We grieve with the parents and families of both children, and the Kalkaska and Mancelona communities.

We cannot possibly know their pain, but we can help carry the burden of the tragedy by learning from it.

The gun involved was loaded and in the bedside table. Michigan does not have a law that requires that guns are locked up; indeed, few states have specific “safe storage” laws on the books. But just because we don’t have a law doesn’t mean it’s not important.

The numbers show worrying trends.

According to a survey in the Journal of Urban Health, an estimated 4.6 million children live in homes with at least one unlocked and loaded gun, with most children knowing where it is. One out of five kids admit to handling the gun without their parents knowledge.

COVID-19 and recent events sent gun sales soaring — Center for American Progress reported that 2 million guns were sold in March 2020, making it the second highest selling month in history.

This, combined with the number of kids at home during COVID-19, showed a 30 percent spike in accidental gun deaths by children between March and May 2020.

Our northern Michigan communities take gun ownership seriously. We know well their power and purpose, and what’s at stake. We should be modeling responsible gun ownership, but instead are seeing preventable tragedy.

It impacts all of us.

We grieve together, and we must also learn together.