Once again violence reared its ugly head and five people paid the price.

Locally, Richard May Jr., 34, and Joseph Acuff Jr. died after they were shot and killed during the weekend, with May dying at the Battlefield Inn in Vicksburg and Acuff in a mobile home park in the 600 block of Standard Hill Road.

Monday, we learned of the shooting deaths of Delta State University History professor Ethan Schmidt in his office and Amy Prentiss in Gautier, who were killed by Shannon Lamb, Prentiss’ boyfriend and a colleague of Schmidt’s. Lamb later committed suicide while trying to elude authorities.

In all four homicides, the local authorities acted quickly and efficiently to protect the public and find the people responsible. In the deaths of May and Acuff, police made arrests, clearing both cases. In the matter of Acuff’s death, police Tuesday made additional arrests.

When we read or hear about these cases, our response is usually shock, followed by sorrow for the victims’ families, followed by praise for the police officers involved in all these deaths for their quick response in locating the individuals responsible.

In the case of the Cleveland and Delta State authorities, they should also be praised for increasing the security of the university campus and the city, and their search to find the offender and prevent more innocent lives from being lost.

Then there is another response, a series of questions: How did this happen? Why wasn’t something done sooner to prevent it?

There are multiple answers to those questions, but none so far have seemed to deliver a solution.

There was once a time when churches, schools and university campuses were among some of the safest places a person could be. For some reason, that situation has changed.

There are simple solutions to the problem, which is tougher sentences and higher bonds to keep criminals in jail, and if either had been followed, May’s and Acuff’s assailants would probably have been in jail this weekend and their victims would probably be alive.

But those simple answers in the long run won’t solve the problem, and may create others, because authorities eventually would have to release other criminals back into society to relieve jail overcrowding.

It’s time we took another shot and looked for an answer. Maybe it’s improving our education system. Maybe it’s trying to look for problems in people when they’re children and find away to build self-esteem and go back to teaching the values that were taught in earlier years, like respecting the rights of others. Maybe it’s more mental health care and research.

Our state and federal governments put millions of dollars into research projects every year. Maybe it’s time they took some of that money and applied it to programs that could help younger people learn to better adapt to society and in doing so curb incidents of violence in the future.

The deaths we experienced over the past four days were tragic and needless.

It needs to stop.