Friday, December 14, 2012

Who goes to an elementary school and mows down an entire kindergarten class?

By now, you’ve heard the heartbreaking and tragic news that a young man dressed in battle dress uniform and armed to the teeth walked into an elementary school in Newtown, CT and mowed down small children and their teachers. As many as 27 are dead, including the alleged shooter, Adam Lanza of Hoboken, NJ.

As a parent of four beautiful children, I cannot fathom the depth of grief that the parents of the dead are experiencing right now. When you drop your children off at school or day care—as I have done for almost 22 years now—you expect to see their bright smiles and beautiful faces at the end of the day.

You expect to have them share all of the wonderful things they learned that day. About Thanksgiving. About Christopher Columbus. About trees, and birds and bugs and how E comes after I except in really funny circumstances.

You don’t expect to get a call from the police, explaining that a gunman has somehow defeated your kids’ school’s security system and that your beautiful child won’t be coming home.

What kind of individual perpetrates this kind of evil in our society?

More importantly, what has changed in our society in recent decades that causes people like Lanza to do what they do?

It’s not guns. Ok? We have had a well-armed populace since the founding of this great nation. We had guns in the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s.. What we did not have was mass shootings at places where innocents gather.

So, I ask again: What has changed?

I can assure you that there will be people who shamelessly attempt to politicize this horrible event. There is a special place in hell for them, but there is even a more special place in hell for those who would harm children.

Hug your children tonight. You can never tell them that you love them too much.

Update: The alleged shooter’s name has been corrected.

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5 comments :

Greg Hammond said...

As a father of four daughters, I agree. You can never tell them toof often how much you love them.

John A Barnes said...

Shooting was a tragedy Another tragedy? The Media rushing out without checking sources and defaming Ryan Lanza. The shooter's Name was Adam Lanza, 20. Ryan is the older brother who was several states away at the time of the shooting. You may want to edit your story in order not to defame an innocent man.

DogRiverCrab said...

What has changed? Loss of Christianity and Morality. The things that kept us in line.

Bamaman said...

If you are going to politizice your articles... you will have dissenting views.
If a reader of your blog is a conservative or a liberal- we usually want the same outcome. One is not inherently better than the other.
Too many automatic weapons that are too easily accessible. Back in the 60´s, 70´s they were not lying around. Couple with easy access with social isolation brought on by Mcmansions, ipods and both parents working 60 hours a week...
We want stuff and this has made us lose part of our culture, our cohesiveness and deteriorating social networks...
There has to be an answer- I am just like all other liberals and conservatives. If we are not respoinsible enough for access to guns. Shouldn´t limited access be on the table? I just don´t know. Strict conservatives THINK they know better. I´m not so sure.

Dave said...

No amount of gun control is going to stop a mentally ill teenager from taking his mother's weapons (legally owned and properly registered), using them to kill her and then slaughtering innocents.

The weapons used weren't high powered automatic rifles. They were ordinary handguns.

In China, a similar rampage took place but the perpetrator used knives instead of firearms.

In Germany, where gun laws were tightened following a school massacre in 2002, a lunatic dressed in black entered another school and shot kids in 2009.


No amount of restrictions on access to firearms is going to stop a determined lunatic from acting out his sick fantasies.

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