Another Mass Shooting? 'Compassion Fatigue' Is A Natural Reaction

Roger Chui first learned about the mass shooting that killed 12 people in a packed bar Wednesday night in Thousand Oaks, Calif., when he woke up the morning after and turned on his phone.

"And I was like 'Oh, that seems really soon after Pittsburgh and Louisville,' " says the software developer in Lexington, Ky. "I thought we'd get more of a break."

Chui feels like these kinds of shootings happen in the U.S. so often now that when he hears about them all he can think about is, "Oh well, it happened again I guess."

He's not alone.

Ginger Ellenbecker, a high school biology teacher in Lawrence, Kan., has similar feelings.

"My immediate reaction was, 'Another one. Here's another one. This is terrible!' But I'm not incredibly surprised," she says.

Both Ellenbecker and Chui say they feel bad about their immediate reactions, but science suggests that their feelings are quite normal.