the.com/shooting

means The act of discharging a gun — ordinary in a hunting field, haunting in a headline.

from From Old English 'sceotan,' meaning to dart forth swiftly or hurl a projectile — the same root that gives us 'shoot,' 'shot,' and 'shut' (the idea of something moving fast and striking home). The gerund '-ing' turned the verb into a noun somewhere along the way, letting the word drift from describing an action — arrows loosed, targets hit — to naming, in modern usage, a specific and grimmer event: gunfire aimed at people. The word didn't change; the century did.