Dear Readers: I have no words that can adequately express my sorrow at the Newtown, CT tragedy. Like Legal Insurrection’s Professor Jacobson, I was in horror as I listened to radio reports and realized that 20 young children were butchered in an insane slaughter at the hands of a “Goth Loner”…but too caught up in work to respond.
Now, I would like to share some thoughts and direct my readers to a few links.
Come away, O human child: To the waters and the wild with a fairy, hand in hand, For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand. ~ William Butler Yeats, The Stolen Child
The ancient Egyptians believed that no body would truly be dead if their names were said. Here is a list of the victims, so that we can remember:
Charlotte Bacon, 6
Daniel Barden, 7
Rachel Davino, 29
Olivia Engel, 6
Josephine Gay, 7
Ana Marquez-Greene, 6
Dylan Hockley, 6
Dawn Hochsprung, 47
Madeleine Hsu, 6
Catherine Hubbard, 6
Chase Kowalski, 7
Jesse Lewis, 6
James Mattioli, 6
Grace McDonnell, 7
Anne Marie Murphy, 52
Emilie Parker, 6
Jack Pinto, 6
Noah Pozner, 6
Caroline Previdi, 6
Jessica Rekos, 6
Avielle Richman, 6
Lauren Rousseau, 30
Mary Sherlach, 56
Victoria Soto,27
Benjamin Wheeler, 6
Allison Wyatt, 6
Many of the stories coming out of this event are heart wrenching. For example, Teacher Vicki Soto shielded her class from the attack:
Family, friends remember the brave, caring legacy of Sandy Hook teacher Vicki Soto, 27
Teacher Victoria Soto used her body to shield her students from the maniacal gunman who staged a massacre at a Connecticut school, relatives said Saturday.
Soto paid for her bravery with her life. But in doing so, the 27-year-old saved her first-graders from the murderous wrath of Adam Lanza — and became a hero.
“The family received information she was found shielding her students in a closet,” Soto’s cousin, Jim Wiltsie, told the Daily News. “She put herself between the gunman and her students
One very disturbing aspect yesterday was how quickly progressive gun control advocates were out clamoring for more legislation undermining the Second Amendment rights of the millions of law-abiding citizens in this country. Their abilities to organize and promote this agenda is not to be underestimated, as is evidenced by a Facebook-petition that was being spread.
Word Warrior has a post that offers a counter to the false assertions: GUN CONTROL VULTURES CIRCLE YET ANOTHER TRAGEDY
It has become all too sadly commonplace that whenever some crazy uses a gun to commit some despicable act of violence, that the gun control fanatics immediately hover like vultures around the scene. To so use every tragedy to push their otherwise unpopular political agenda is both exploitative and obscene.
Guns are not the issue. Evil is the issue.
The worst violence in modern history (other than that committed by governments against their own people, as we see today in Syria) was done by men armed primarily with clubs and machetes: the genocide in Rwanda.
The piece also contains a quote from a Prosecuting Attorney: I suggest to you that you don’t even know enough about what happened today to give us an intelligent suggestion as what kind of gun control could have prevented today’s tragedy, and when you do find out all the facts which will become available, you won’t be able to tell us what kind of gun control could have prevented it, other then the total abolition of private gun ownership and a waiting period of about two-hundred years for current ammo supplies in private hands to run out. And how do I know that? Because I have these discussions for the last thirty years when some evil lunatic uses a gun to commit some monstrous evil, and I haven’t heard any suggestion which would be effective from even the most committed and thoughtful anti-gun advocate.
Check out the full article.
Instead of politics, efforts should focus on three things:
1) Addressing how to properly identify mentally ill people and handle them in a sensible manner – instead of the hands-off, PC, pharmaceutical-based approach we do now.(Remember Jared Loughner???)
2) Helping the families of the victims, like Emilie Parker: Via Dan Riehl:
Her father, Robbie Parker, fought back tears as he described the beautiful, blonde, always-smiling girl who loved to try new things, except food.
Parker, one of the first parents to publicly talk about his loss, expressed no animosity for the gunman, even as he struggled to explain the death to his other two children, ages 3 and 4. He’s sustained by the fact that the world is better for having had Emilie in it.
“I’m so blessed to be her dad,” he said.
There’s a Facebook page and fund set up on Emile and her family’s behalf. I’d encourage readers to visit and support Emile and her family, along with the many others impacted by this tragedy.
3) Prayer.
[...] one critically important aspect continues to get lost in the intense press coverage: The failure to develop and implement serious and protective policies that address the needs of both the mentally ill and their potential [...]