Legendary professional football coach Vince Lombardi was famous for asking his team, “What … is goin’ on out there?”

How appropriate for Vicksburg and Warren County. In less than two weeks, the community has seen four people die of gunshot wounds.

Negligence, carelessness and malice are the uncommon threads. The common thread is the guns were used without due respect and caution.

Three men are charged in three of the shootings. No charges were filed in the fourth, but families on all sides were thrown into turmoil. The entire community is affected.

In the first case, authorities say Daniel O’Neil Dodd, 28, of Tyler, Texas, fatally shot his roommate, Michael Tonero, 26, of Houston, in what police believe to be an accident. Dodd was arrested, however, and faces a charge of manslaughter with culpable negligence because the two were playing with guns in a motel room. Whether a grand jury agrees or not, negligence was at the root of the tragedy that could have been avoided if guns had been handled properly.

In the second case, a Warren County man, Ricky Selby, is believed to have reached into the trunk of a vehicle and a loaded gun discharged, killing him. The terribly sad root in this death lies in pure carelessness.

On May 26, another Warren County man, Gerald Wayne “Jerry” Allen, was gunned down, and his father, Winifred Allen, is in jail facing murder charges. An argument earlier in the day set off the shooting, authorities said. The father is charged with murder, and for jurors to find him guilty, malice will have to be proved. A time of anger is not the time to turn to such a powerful — and permanent — weapon as a gun.

Finally, in the fourth case, on Tuesday, police arrested James Ransom, 19, and charged him with killing 20-year-old Robert Banks. Once again, the appearance is that a shooting occurred and a death followed because a gun was used for a wrong purpose at a wrong time — after an argument over a dice game, police say. And again, murder is the charge, and malice will have to be proved.

Four men, four lives, four deaths resulting from the cavalier use of guns.

We surely wish whatever “is goin’ on” would stop.