The shooting death of a suspected robber late Thursday night at Little B’s on Main Street in quiet downtown Victoria has rocked our quaint community.

Using social media, reader Pam Silcox commented on the link to our breaking story, noting, “It’s hard to wrap one’s brain around this … somehow we are lulled into thinking that this ‘big city’ kind of thing doesn’t happen in our small towns … Yes it does! It has!”

There’s no doubt that there seemed to be more bad than good in our community Thursday, Friday and into the weekend.

As Silcox said, it is difficult to understand why someone would choose to display a gun and seek to cause harm to a complete stranger. It’s hard to understand why someone would take actions to take another’s life in any situation.

Crime happens everywhere. There’s no doubt about that. In rural and small towns — such as ours — the frequency of such violent crimes is less, which means when something like this happens, it comes as a very hard pill to swallow, or, as Silcox said, “wrap one’s brain around.”

In reality, there is and always will be more good than bad in the world and in this community in every minute, every hour and every day. And there are several reasons why.

First, light always defeats darkness, meaning good always defeats bad.

If there there are any agencies in the commonwealth of Virginia that can figure out what exactly what happened, if the shooting was justified and if any charges should be filed, it’s the Victoria Police Department, the Lunenburg County Sheriff’s Office, Virginia State Police and the Lunenburg County Commonwealth’s Attorney.

A community cannot and should not be judged by the crimes or incidents reported in its jurisdiction.

As for the positive, uplifting traits of this community, one need not look further than the pages of this newspaper to see reports of daily achievements by our students, donations by our businesses, services rendered by our nonprofits and success in our community by people helping each other daily.