How to Make Sense of a Senseless Act of Violence

by Nomad

Whenever there is a senseless act of violence against the innocent, many of us struggle to find the means to cope, or some kind of an appropriate response. That often seems like an impossible feat.

"Chapelhillvictims" 
by Source (WP:NFCC#4).

On February 10, 2015, Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23,  and his wife, Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, 21,and her 19-year old sister, Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha were brutally murdered in their Chapel Hill, North Carolina home. 

All three died of gunshot wounds inflicted by their neighbor, Craig Stephen Hicks, a 46-year-old former car parts salesman. (Reportedly the motive for the triple murder was a dispute about a parking space.

Barakat and his wife were both students at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, enrolled in the School for Dentistry. Last Monday Barakat would have begun his third year there and his wife would have followed her husband with her first-year dentistry school. 

A senseless tragedy, there's no doubt about that. The question is: is there ever an appropriate response to such an event? It is too easy to match hate with hate, ignorance with ignorance, or perhaps worse, simply to shake one's head and move on.
How can we not surrender to despair?