We don't like seeing pictures of little children terrorized by men with guns, so we reflexively blame the person who made it happen. We are frightened of wild fires, so we point our uninformed finger at the nearest target. In our personal lives, we do the same thing. Something bad happens to me, if I'm not on top of my reactions, I lash out in blame. All this is very different from calmly and objectively looking at events to hold responsible parties accountable or see how tragedies can be prevented in the future, and the difference is simple.
Blame arises from a sense of being threatened, and bypasses the higher thought processes completely.
It's the same kind of process that causes us to jerk our hand back from the hot stove even before our rational brain realizes that we've touched it. I think of it as the snake brain. It can strike out like lightning, hissing and hurting, and has no notion of its own best, long term interests. Snakes have no choice but to blame, strike out and hiss when things are not going their way, but we Humans do have choices. We can teach ourselves to restrain our snake brain, and give the messages of danger, pain, and threat a chance to reach our thinking and feeling brains, where we can look at the larger situation and the longer term.