Never again

Like everyone else, I remain in shock and disbelief over the massacre of 27 people in Connecticut. I hope someway, somehow the survivors of that day, including the families and friends of the deceased, the children and staff of the school, the first responders and everyone else in Newtown, can find a way to move forward from this horrific act. I will continue to pray for the people of Newtown and hope you will do the same. (Or, if you don't pray just send them good vibes) Those children and teachers are at peace, but for everyone else there are many many difficult days and weeks ahead.

The rest of us need to figure out a way to protect our children or any innocent people in public places. This can never happen again.

We could start by demanding some reasonable and accurate reporting from the media, bloggers and politicians. Using a tragedy like this to further one's own political agenda is reprehensible. I have observed  a lot of idiocy in the media reporting regarding what it means to have asbergers, what mental illness is and does or even whether this particular person actually was mentally ill. (In case you are wondering, asbergers is not mental illness.)  Reporters and bloggers are diagnosing this person, his mother, each other, and everyone else when they cannot possibly know what went on. This is not helpful and it just adds to the hysteria.


I don't know anything about what happened and I cannot compare my understanding of disability to this horrific scene - because I have absolutely no comparison. I do know parents struggle with getting help for children with emotional needs and other mental health issues, but I have no idea if that those struggles had any bearing whatsoever on the situation in Sandy Hook.


It is clear, however, that something was wrong with the shooter because believing that a sane person is capable of such evil is simply impossible for me. It is also clear that he had easy access to a legally owned cache of weaponry and that combination of things was lethal to so many people.

 I agree with President Obama on two important counts: 1) that something has to be done to protect the children and 2) that laws can't eliminate evil.

I do know this:  if that principal and those teachers were brave enough to protect those children while facing this gunman, then we have to be brave enough to put the histrionics aside and figure out how to prevent this from ever happening again.