Los Angeles Times

Mark Z. Barabak: I covered the California McDonald's massacre in 1984. Why does gun violence just get worse?

Mourners take part in a vigil for the victims of a mass shooting at the Star Dance Studio on Monday, Jan. 23, 2023, in Monterey Park, California.

On a sunny July afternoon, James Oliver Huberty drove his black Mercury Marquis to a McDonald's restaurant in San Ysidro, near the border with Mexico, bearing a small arsenal and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.

He opened fire on cooks and counter workers, on diners and employees hiding in a storage area, on a mother and her infant, on three boys bicycling through the parking lot.

Twenty-one people died in what, at the time, was the worst mass shooting by a lone gunman in U.S. history. I covered the murders for United Press International. Today, the 1984 as it's

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