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Reader question: Please explain “stuff happens” in this headline: Jeb Bush Shrugs off Oregon shooting: “Stuff happens.” My comments: Stuff is the word representing a number of different things you cannot or don’t want to name in full. For example, you ask a friend before a camping trip: “How can you fit all that stuff into a car?” Or a young man who explains why he hasn’t a television in his house: “I don’t want one. I don’t want any more furniture. They’re just stuff. They’re just things.” Anyways, let’s get back to Jeb Bush, the American Republican candidate running for President for 2016. When he shrugs off the Oregon shooting, in which nine people were killed by a lone gunman in a school, saying “Stuff happens”, he was simply saying “Things happen”. It’s that simple. He means to say, bad things happen. I don’t mean for them to happen. Nobody wants them to happen but they do. There’s nothing we can do about stuff happening. So let’s forget it, forget this particular tragedy and move on. Yeah, it’s that simple. But is it? Of course not. Gun violence is a huge problem in America and it’s about people and society. The Oregon mass killing, the 45th school killing so far this year, is not a natural disaster like an earthquake or tsunami, or a hurricane. It doesn’t just happen. The guy, for instance, cannot kill without having guns in hand. | 
