Will Sandy Hook finally teach us what Columbine couldn't?
Will we change something this time? Or, as with Columbine, will the shock wear off and our senses gradually adjust to the latest outrage on innocence – our basic expectations change so that we begin to anticipate and wearily accept elementary school shootings as “the price of freedom” as we’ve come to do with high school shootings?
So. It’s been a little over three weeks. And already we’re beginning to act like Sandy Hook was just another day in America when a “crazy person” shot up a bunch of people rather than acknowledge how crazy it is that anybody can legally acquire a 30 round magazine that can turn muscle to bloody mass and bone to flying red dust in two seconds flat.
But, in a way, I guess it was just another day. After all, yet again, American parents were left to perform the perverse and all-too-common act of burying a child who died from bullet wounds.
This time it was twenty sets of American parents. This time it was war-grade firepower that literally ripped twenty little bodies to pieces.
Our hearts were broken in a whole new way. Just like after Columbine. And some of us made new and eager promises about making sure another nightmare like this one would never again descend on us. Just like after Columbine.
Columbine, we said, was the crashing tidal wave that would change the direction of the sea. The mass murder of high school students was shocking, numbing … for a while. Then we started to accept the murder of students by students as an eventuality - with a kind of knowing dread that bigger and badder could happen at any time. Still we were (as a culture) unwilling to change much.
So … here we are. Just another day.
The NRA and its advocates certainly want us to act like it’s just another day. They must because they trotted out their same old chapter and verse from their “Book of How To Respond Badly to a Gun Massacre.” To them, even in the wake of the mass murder of children still losing their baby teeth, the proper response remains “To be more safe we need more guns in more hands.”
I’m about to get blunt up in here: Bull.
NRA President Wayne LaPierre’s suggestion that we arm teachers and ring each school with armed guards should strike any thinking person and fearful parent as altogether inadequate.
Leaping over the huge issue of who pays for armed school guards when (looking at the “Great American Tax Debate” over the last few election cycles) we don’t even want to pay adequately for teachers’ salaries and school books, will we now be requiring gun training certification as part of the Bachelor’s degree in education?
Just how do we plan to handle the first time a teacher leaves a gun within a child’s reach? Or the first time a “crazy” teacher shoots a “threatening” student? Or the first time a child dies by “friendly fire”?
And, when the cops show up at the next school shooting and everybody is shooting at everybody how will their bullets know the “good guys” from the “bad guys”?
Even if we answer all those complicated issues sensibly that still leaves one very huge problem:
Will the armed school guards then follow our children to the malls, the movie theaters, play grounds, soccer fields, beauty shops, houses of worship and all the other places there have been mass shootings?
Just as important, can these armed guards provide protection against the individual shootings of our children (or wives, husbands, fathers and mothers)? Those that happen every day all across the nation - that when amassed constitute a merciless massacre bigger than any of us could face without falling to our knees?
Because, make no mistake, to the relatives of those shot down individually (some 35 each day) the murders are as senseless, the loss as horrible, the pain as crushing, the days as dark, devastating and desolate as for the families of Sandy Hook.
What cages the heart and crushes the lungs about Sandy Hook is that all that childish innocence and human magic was captured in one place. And cornered. And slaughtered. In seconds.
Twenty little shining souls and the six vibrant lives given while protecting them - gone with the all-too-easy pressure on a semi-automatic trigger.
Obvious statement time: There’s only one way to get bullet wounds. And it’s entirely preventable.
In a country where parents overwhelmingly inoculate against preventable disease, insist that the government ensures the safety of foods, medicines and cribs and spend millions on child safety seats, knee pads and bike helmets – do you mean to tell me that there’s no parental and political will nor moral urgency to stop rapid-fire bullets from shredding the tender flesh of our children?
Will we change something this time? Or, as with Columbine, will the shock wear off and our senses gradually adjust to the latest outrage on innocence – our basic expectations change so that we begin to anticipate and wearily accept elementary school shootings as “the price of freedom” as we’ve come to do with high school shootings?
Will we let Sandy Hook become “just another day in America”?
Good God in heaven … I hope not.
In memory of:
Charlotte Bacon, 6 Daniel Barden, 7 Olivia Engel, 6 Josephine Gay, 7 Ana Greene-Marquez, 6 Dylan Hockley, 6 Madeline F. Hsu, 6 Catherine V. Hubbard, 6 Chase Kowalski, 7 Jesse Lewis, 6 James Mattioli, 6 Grace McDonnell, 7 Emilie Parker, 6 Jack Pinto, 6 Noah Pozner, 6 Caroline Previdi, 6 Jessica Rekos, 6 Avielle Richman, 6 Benjamin Wheeler, 6 Alison Wyatt, 6 Victoria Soto, 27 Rachel D’Avino, 29 Lauren Rousseau, 30 Dawn Hochsprung, 47 Anne Marie Murphy, 52 Mary Sherlach, 56
May we never forget. Nor accept.
Suzanne Conaway
4 months, 2 weeks agoMalvina, you’re my new hero.
Kent Mueller
4 months, 2 weeks agoHas it been released exactly what weaponry was used, and what ammunition?
JR Beillenhouser
4 months, 2 weeks agoBut let’s accept 3300 abortions each day, with nary a word in the media and of course no restrictions at all.
George Hunsucker
Northland
4 months, 2 weeks agoThat’s “different” JR…. abortion is not murder, just ask any smart lib…..
Steve Alleman
Kansas City
4 months, 2 weeks agoThis is progress. When wingnuts can only talk about gun violence by bringing up abortion, you know they have nothing to contribute to the discussion. Embrace your irrelevance, gentlemen.
Suzanne Conaway
4 months, 2 weeks agoGeorge,we’ve been through the abortion thing before. You’ve already agreed that 20 weeks (long past the point of 99% of abortions) should be the cut-off due to fetal pain.
So, let’s not equate the termination of embryos with the deaths of fullly developed human beings.
Robert Copher
4 months, 2 weeks agoSuzanne, may I use that last line? Perfectly stated!!
Robert Copher
4 months, 2 weeks agoAs for gun control, my concern is the current dialog is widening from gun control into mind control and the addition of more subjective guidelines in our laws that will continue to be exploited. Take mental health out of the gun control debate and continue the discuaaion without further violations of constituional rights being violated, and most will climb on board. Peeking into my body to determine if I deserve a job, or to fly on your plane, or into my brain to determine if I deserve a gun, IMO is unacceptable. We’ve started stepping over lines and demonstrating un-American values in order to preserve American values? Doesn’t work for me.