I had half a dozen interesting posts ready to go out today, but I decided it was inappropriate to return to business as usual after the tragedy at the Sandy Hook Elementary School.
I postponed them. So you won’t be getting another post today.
This is a time to mourn, to reflect, to be still.
It’s a time to think about the heroic staff at the school who reacted immediately to protect their students.
It’s a time to think about the principal Dawn Hochsprung and the school psychologist Mary Sherlach. When the trouble started, they ran to the shooter instead of hiding.
I saw an interview with a teacher who was distraught. A reader saw the same interview and said this: “Did you happen to catch the interview with the one teacher (one amazing wonderful woman) who shepherded her class into a bathroom and kept them all assured that they would be ok? She told them, “i want you all to know I love you.” She expressed to the interviewer that her thinking was that she was afraid they would die and she wanted to make sure that if they were that the last thing they would remember hearing was not the gunshots, but the sound of someone telling them that they were loved. “This” in this era of teacher bashing.”
Last night I got an email informing me, “you lost a follower.” That’s when I found out that Dawn Hochsprung followed me on Twitter; she followed only 70 people. I was shaken.
Mostly what I thought about was the parents. I have a six-year-old grandson, and I was heartsick for those who lost their babies. Many years ago, one of my children died of leukemia, which was horrible, but how much worse to think that your precious son or daughter was murdered. What unfathomable madness. I don’t know how you live with that terrible knowledge. The pain is unbearable.
There is no way to make sense of what happened. I ask myself why anyone is allowed to have an assault weapon. I don’t know why. I ask why and how our society has become so desensitized to violence and at the same time so addicted to it.
I think of the violent video games, the violent movies, the violent conflicts in which we engage around the world. And I think about how many seriously disturbed people see violence as a route to infamy or attention or some fantasy in which they are a super-hero/villain.
We have a lot of thinking to do.
About violence. About our reckless media. About the true heroism of our educators. About how we change our ways of thinking and acting. About how we protect our children. About why we are obsessed about being number 1 instead of spending more time repairing the serious ills of our society.
I don’t have the answers.
I just think it’s time to start asking the right questions.
Please feel free to leave a comment.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
mery x-mas! & happy new year!! (count
down)
I’m sure there was something wrong, but I also don’t know
which one went wrong. Why there was guns everywhere. Maybe because
the neighbourhood wasn’t safe? Why it wasn’t safe? Many criminals
punished too light. Why the punishment too light? Because we think
a lot about human rights while the criminals don’t think so. Maybe,
just maybe
First, my condolences to the families. This was an
absolutely awful occurrence. What to do to prevent future ones is
far more difficult, and in my opinion, no single act will do it. I
believe there are many contributing features, and the problem is,
blocking any individual one alone would punish a very large number
of good people, and still would not stop the bad. Rightly or
wrongly, I think the best approach is to try to ensure all young
children engage properly in some sociable activity. Any one will
do; what you do not want is children growing up, isolated. Amongst
other things, I think it is important that in play, children learn
that some activities lead to hurt, I think every child needs to get
hurt through some sort of play, and they learn to help/support the
one who gets hurt. They have to learn to value other people’s
freedom from being hurt.
Real security comes from within us and not from the
outside. When are we going to realise that all the trappings of
material wealth will not make us better people if the core is
insecure? It is time to slow down, meditate on the purpose of life
and help people in need. While legislative measures can help
control proliferation of WMD within communities, equal emphasis
must be placed on mental health issues.
Assault rifles are classified under the acronym of SALWs not WMD
I hear a lot of talk that mental illness needs to be
controlled. Having a brother who suffers from bipolar disorder, let
me say, mental illness is not the issue. What the real issue here
is, we have a young man in this case that had a problem that is far
beyond mental illness. This man had some serious anger, and took
revenge for whatever reason out on innocent and harmless people.
That does not constitute mental illness, that does constitute
behavioral health issues. There is a difference.
Hi Diana, I am Roger. I am thousands of miles away in the
Caribbean country of Guyana and I am sadden on the event at Sandy
Hook, CT. I just keep thinking of victims. My heart goes out to the
families of the victims, especially those innocent little
kids
I live in the UK – we don’t have guns – we don’t have massacres of innocent babes. Can no-one in the US see a correlation here?
As someone who A) grew up just half an hour from Newtown, B) Was a public school teacher for a dozen years and C) Has a 6-year old child of myself, this tragedy really hit me hard. As a high school teacher, there were occasionally students who really concerned me in terms of what they were capable of doing. As a former CT resident, I still consider those people my own neighbors (despite the fact that I now live a thousand miles away.) As a dad, I drop my child off at the school not knowing if I’ll ever be able to hold him again, tickle his feet, watch him draw a picture, etc.
As an American, I know we have to stop acting as if, with each of these almost weekly violent tragedies, that they are someone else’s problem, as long as they don’t happen to us or ours. We have become un-stuck from one another, atomized by a culture that overrates the individual at the expense of the whole. But if the collective whole is sick, no individual can ever truly be safe and free to live his or her life the way we should be able to expect in a civilized society.
Whatever the solution is, no interest group should be allowed to pretend that their particular interest is paramount to the interests of the collective whole. That intellectual, soulless dishonesty is in large part how we got into this mess in the first place.
Our children, hell, all of us, deserve better than that.
Respectfully, Bill
Diane,
I love that you said it’s time we start asking the right questions.
I think that’s a huge piece of what we’re missing.
I am really working on taking time to listen and ask questions instead of planning what I will say next.
As a mother of 3, things like this are terrifying and empathy for the ones who mourn is at times debilitating.
Thank you for your post.
~Joy
Which are those right questions you have arrived at, Joy?
good-day!
I don’t know that I have any “right” questions.
Questions arise all the time. Some that I’m too afraid or embarrassed to ask and wish that I had later.
I always learn from asking questions more than talking.
Does that make sense?
Questions are the beginning. Maybe if someone took the time to ask the shooter years before when he was a child he may have grown up to be a different. I asked an LA Detective once, why would someone do such a thing and she replied, “I stop asking why.” It’s never too late to start asking questions and showing people we care. My heartfelt thoughts to all who suffered and are still suffering. Courage.
Questions are the beginning. Maybe if someone took the time to ask the shooter years before when he was a child he may have grown up to be a different. I asked an LA Detective once, why would someone do such a thing and she replied, “I stop asking why.” It’s never too late to start asking questions and showing people we care. My heartfelt thoughts to all who suffered and are still suffering. Courage.
thank you…hopefully the right questions will be asked. God Bless.
Can perhaps you contribute with some of those right questions?
I wish I could, but I am at a loss. I can’t even begin to imagine what would drive a person to do such a horrifying act or how to prevent it. I don’t think guns are the issue (entirely). I do know that a sane well-adjusted person doesn’t just wake up one morning and say, I’m going to________ *fill in the blank with heinous act of crime.
Somehow we need to reach these people before they get to this point. How? I wish I knew. My husband is a pastor of a small country church, I work at our town’s library…we see so many children without any direction. They are looking for love, attention, direction – someone to care. We try to give them that. If we only reach one child – it’ll be worth it. In the mean time, we continue to love, teach and nurture our sons…hoping to raise them to be pillars of their community. We want to raise sons who will be like those brave teachers, wiling to defend the weak and stand up for what is right.
Only in your imagination. There is no credible evidence that anyone but Lanza was at the scene of the shooting. If there was, did the “other” shooter mysteriously vanish into thin air once the first responders arrived (in a matter of minutes, I might add.) Plenty of people saw Lanza, including the kids who did survive, and more than one adult. It’s kind of hard not to be noticed when you are spraying a building with gunfire.
There is also the problem of motive. If one deranged young man commits this act, he is no different from a pack of others like him who have committed violent acts like this over the past decade. But if you’re implying that his father might have been involved as well, the obvious question is, to what end? A very wealthy, successful individual, who apparently didn’t have much, if any, relationship with his son is suddenly just going to risk throwing everything he has away, for what reason? So he can have some violent quality time with his estranged son? Absolutely defies logic and common sense.
Also, I know that there was at least one camera in the school. Don’t you think that if the cops had any evidence that there might have been a second gunman, they would be asking the public for help in finding him, or are the cops involved in this conspiracy as well?
The world can do without yet another pointless conspiracy theory.
What is the credible evidence that 20 children and Lanza were killed? Oh, I don’t know. The dead bodies maybe? I have an idea. Why don’t you drive up to Newtown, CT and tell those parents that you don’t believe their kids were actually killed. Or do you believe the parents don’t exist, either? Perhaps there really is no Newtown, CT. Perhaps we are all living in an alternate reality where whatever people decide is true is in fact true?
Lyn, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but just because it’s on the internet, that doesn’t make it true.
My God, Where do you people come from?
Sorry, Lyn, No, not you.
An excellent post. You are right… this is a time for quiet reflection and mourning. Try as we might I doubt we’ll ever understand this. Somethings are just beyond understanding.
I preface this by saying I do not personally own or use guns although the second amendment much touted to be protect those who hunt – balderdash! Hunting to put meals on the table was a way of life at that time and the founders and writers of the U.S. Constition would have never dreamed that an amendment would be required to allow gun ownership for the purpose of hunting to feed one’s famility. No the U.S. Constitution says that it is my option/right to do so to protect myself and my family from those who would harm us and is not up for debate it does not require me to register them(this alone defeats the purpose of having them to protect against tyrannical government) or ask anyone’s permission to own them. That being said If you ban guns yes even assault weapons only the crooks and the cops(government i.e. DEA, ICE, IRS, EPA, FDA, etc….) will have them. Neither scenario makes me feel any safer
Ms.Ravitch,
Very well constructed and heartfelt blog. Thank you. Those women who perished in that shooting were in keeping with the highest definition of heroism of any branch of the Armed Services engaged in any conflict in history. True protectors they were. I am saddened and humbled by their sacrifice. I have some strong feelings on what I believe to be a multi faceted problem in our society and have constructed several pieces that are in line with much of what you are saying. Thanks again.
I cannot imagine the pain people must feel. I am trying to pray. For all those people who died. For their families. And for their killer, for it is really he who most needs our prayers. Even though he did something terrible, we need to forgive. We need to remember that we all have faults, maybe not as dramatic as others, but if we do not forgive others in this life, how will we be forgiven in the next one?
An Open Letter to Jamie Foxx, Paul Rudd, Michelle Jamie Foxx,Williams, Jennifer Aniston, John Legend, Will Ferrell and Jason Bateman, among others who teamed up with DEMANDAPLAN.ORG to create a video in which you reel off a list of shootings that have occurred in America in recent years, and urge viewers to seek solutions to stem the tide of violence: You guys don’t go far enough, please LISTEN TO ME HERE!
Dear Jamie Foxx, Paul Rudd, Michelle Jamie Foxx,Williams, Jennifer Aniston, John Legend, Will Ferrell, Jessica Alba, Rashida Jones, Julia Luis-Dreyfus, Carey Mulligan, Beyonce, Jeremy Renner, Amy Poehler, Aziz Ansari, Nick Offerman, John Slattery, Selana Gomez, Jon Hamm, Chris Rock, Conan O’Brien
, and Jason Bateman, among others who have teamed up with http://www.DEMANDAPLAN.ORG to create a video in which you reel off a list of shootings that have occurred in America in recent years, and urge viewers to seek solutions to stem the tide of violence: The video is great, BUT you guys don’t go far enough, please LISTEN TO ME HERE
In the wake of the Sandy Hook Christmas Massacre in Newtown, Connecticut that left dozens dead last week, you have assembled to highlight the subject of gun violence and seek solutions to the growing plague.
BUT your video does not go far enough! If you are really serious about stopping gun violence in America, then you might read this open letter and think about joining my crusade to get the MPAA and CEO Chris Dodd and the entire Hollywood community of producers, writers and directors — AND ACTORS — to think about getting rid of all gun handling and gun firing scenes in all future movies made in America!
There I said it. You guys have some responsibility here because you act in these violent movies, well, some of you do, and you are part of the problem, too. You should join my campaign to ask Hollywood to stop putting scenes of people using guns, handling guns and firing guns in all future movies you make. If you do not agree with gun violence, my friends, do not appear in a movie with scenes of guns being handled or guns being fired. Period. See?
Sure, the first step is legal laws to end this craziness in America. But at the same time, on the cultural front, you men and women as actors and actresses have a role to play here: You can refuse to appear in future movies that show scenes of guns being handled or fired. Will you join me in my OPEN LETTER to MPAA chief Chris Dodd?
Will your careers suffer if you refuse to make movies with gun scenes in them? Maybe a bit, but you can find creative ways to work around this. I am sure you can. And I am sure your agents and managers will support you, too. If they don’t, fire them and hire a new team. We cannot just make videos and say we are against violence and crazy gun laws in America — that is, the lack of sane gun laws in the USA — we must also take a stand as writers, directors, producers and actors to say “I will no longer agree to appear in movies in the future which include scenes of guns being handled or fired. And I will lobby Chris Dodd and the MPAA to act on this idea, too.”
So, Jamie, Paul , Michelle , Jennifer , John , Will , Jason , and the others who appeared on the video, will you joing me? Will you take a real, personal, strong stand and join my crusade? I cannot do it without you. Please join me, in any way you can. I am all ears.
Sincerely,
Dan Bloom
social activist,
Tufts 1971 grad — friend of producer Steve Tisch who went to school with me there 1967-1971
bikolang@gmail.com
Reblogged this on Dotsie01’s Weblog.
I’d like to share two of my most recent blogposts, perchance they could help raise a few questions.
http://aapatawaran.com/2012/12/23/if-by-rudyard-kipling/
http://aapatawaran.com/2012/12/22/the-question-is-who-are-you/
I think that somehow we all feel we ought to do something, but our world has changed so much, we have strayed too far from what we naturally are that we have no idea how we can trace back our steps to that place where we were once pure and good and our children were safe and our world was quiet and peaceful and beautiful.
I like your idea of pushing people to start asking questions: Just because things are the way they are doesn’t always mean they ought to stay that way.
Thank you for your post.
Mr.Bloom,
You make some valid points. While modernized gun legislation is critical, society overall needs to supplement that effort as well. The question is will they? Will people risk losing money choosing not to take part in any type of media that personifies meaningless violence whether it be not performing in a role that is inherently violent or not producing a game that glorifies mass murder or just simply choosing not to buy their kid that newly released version of grand theft auto or some other similar hyper violent game.
I’ll tell you something else regarding firearms legislation, it can go a whole lot farther into the weeds than what I saw on demandaplan.org.
1. Require a criminal background check for every gun sold in America
(Common sense, should have been in full effect in all 50 states already. Why it isn’t is a mystery. The question is what kind of teeth do you put behind this? If a gun salesmen fails to comply and ensure a background investigation is done properly before selling a weapon, every single time, and they are caught, their FFL is void and they will be looking at federal jail time. If the weapon they sold is used in the commission of a crime, that jail time will be commensurate with the degree of the violation that particular weapon was used in as well as leaving that person vulnerable to civil litigation as well.)
2. Ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines
(Not a huge deal in my opinion. Kind of like banning all sports cars because statistically these vehicle are involved in more vehicular fatalities. Realistically a whole lot of murder is committed with handguns, shotguns etc. If a law abiding citizen wants an M4 and a 30 round magazine for his home I don’t take issue with it. What it goes back to is the implementation of the legislation mentioned above. If the detailed background check is done by the seller, and it is done because failure to do so will get you thrown in federal prison for a protracted amount of time, then I believe most will comply, at least the law abiding citizens, but criminals don’t give a damn about the law anyway. Bottom line up front, people selling weapons and the people buying them need to be legally motivated to do the right thing).
3. Make gun trafficking a federal crime, including real penalties for “straw purchasers”
(Good)
Here is what I would add:
4. Going back to Aurora: How James Eagan Holmes (the Aurora CO shooter) was able to procure thousands of rounds of ammunition on-line over a few months without a flag being raised somewhere within the BATF is nothing short of negligent. There needs to be legislation that limits how much ammunition is able to be purchased whether its online or at your neighborhood sporting goods store. If you habitually come in to Big 5 and buy a couple hundred rounds of ammo to head down range and go shooting fine. If you think that you are going to buy 6000 rounds of .223 over 90 days, someone with a badge should want to have a talk with you.
This also should affect how much smokeless powder you can buy. Currently you can literally purchase several hundred lbs of smokeless powder (essentially over the counter high explosive) without the BATF even knowing a damn thing about it. The FBI does a pretty good job at tracking pedophiles through electronic means, lets apply that same methodology to tracking unusual purchases of ammo and weapons. (I am a gun owner and I re-load as well, I never have had more than a couple of lbs of smokeless powder in my domicile at one time, so anybody complaining that their chosen hobby will be impacted isn’t in my opinion making a valid argument)
5. Implement a federal mandate requiring a cross-reference of a pharmaceutical database with a weapons database when somebody is picking up your script for these types of drugs, or purchasing a weapon (part of the background check).
6. A federal law dictating how weapons are stored in the home is up for discussion in my opinion as well, (I own firearms and I keep them in a nice gun safe that is easily accessible by my wife and I in the event someone is dumb enough to walk into my home uninvited). This is particularly important if you have family members under psychiatric medication. If you leave your weapons freely accessible to any kid and something happens whether its an accident or other than you as the owner can be prosecuted and incarcerated under federal law.
7. Stronger federal laws requiring that weapons be properly registered and consequently strict sentences for those that choose not to do so, particularly for those selling firearms at a gun show.
The key is to develop laws intelligently, and for citizens to comply with them to the letter. Unless you are intent on breaking the law, having the state or federal government being aware of what you own is no big deal, and having to comply with a full background check and then waiting several days to pick up your weapon isn’t a major obstacle either.
The necessity to create a law that mandates how you store weapons and ammunition in your home so any kid can’t just get ahold of it is kind of sad. You would like to think that this would just be a common sense issue but apparently it’s not and because of this we must plan down to the lowest common denominator.
New common sense laws must be created and applied that correspond with society and the sentence for violating them must have big scary teeth.
Again, while legislation is essential, the rest of society has to be willing to cover its end as well.
At the end of the day a firearm is an inanimate object with no will of its own. Its people that commit crime, and chances are if there wasn’t a firearm to be found anywhere in the United States, those same people intent upon evil will find another way to go about their chosen path.
I enjoyed your commentary and the video, thanks.
MGunns
Diane please delete all of the ‘conspiracy theorist’ posts. They’re off topic, off base, insulting, and downright nutty.
Thanks
RR
I pray you get the help you need this Christmas season.
Your posts are not informative, they’re biased and based on a conspiracy theory not worthy of this site.
This is a site to discuss education not nutty conspiracy theories. Out they go.
They are gone, and if I spot them, they are not coming back.
Thank you
Thank you, Diane. Connecticut is a small state, and I did not recognize just how interconnected we are here until this tragedy. If any conspiracy theorists doubt that this happened, I could tell you in particular of two teachers and one child involved. Only one of the teachers survived.
Merry Christmas!!
Thank you Diane, teachers are still following this news from Australia. We spoke about it together in schoolyards and staff-rooms until the end of our academic year. Many years ago we learned a hard lesson about what we really love, and made some hard choices. We grew up, destroyed the war toys and moved on. We share the grief for children and parents that will not come home. Now is the time for tears.
Lyn, Seriously? A scene in a Batman movie is evidence that President Obama is behind all this? When you say this shooting comes at a “convenient time,” you mean as opposed to all the other mass shootings that have taken place in recent years? And of course you believe his tears are fake, as, I’m guessing, you probably believe his birth certificate is as well. In fact, he’s a cyborg from Planet Socialist (and an incompetent one at that; a true Socialist would have nationalized the banks and the oil industry by now), who, after signing legislation allowing guns on Amtrack and in our National Forests, now wants to take them all back again to “control” us. That about right?
Here’s an alternative scenario for you conspiracy theorists: A young man, who has manifested anti-social behaviors for many years now, who has apparently no “normal” social contact at all with anyone but his mother, who also has access to at least 3 or 4 guns, expresses his anger and rage at a world he can never really be part of in the most horrific fashion he can imagine. He kills 26 people in a school, then, like many of these mass killers have done before, he commits suicide, satisfied in the knowledge that he accomplished his sick goal.
Why is it so hard for some of you to get your arms around the fact that some people actually commit these heinous acts, aided and abetted by a poorly financed mental health system, and a gun industry that puts profits before people? And, furthermore, that others, perhaps even including the President, who has two children of his own, are searching for ways to, if not completely end this senseless violence, than at least to find ways to minimize the number of casualties?
Going after the shooter…what character and courage.
Lyn, Against my best judgment, I watched the video. So some guy sitting in a trailer park in Idaho has heard “rumors” that Lanza’s father works for the CIA. Look, media incompetence (as when they initially stated that his mom was a teacher at the school) is hardly evidence of a vast conspiracy (which is certainly what you’re implying here). Again, to believe all this stuff, you have to believe that literally dozens, perhaps hundreds, of people — cops, teachers, etc. — who were on site, and whose relatives were killed here, are involved in what amounts to a vast cover-up at the behest of the Obama administration. You can choose to believe what you want, but you’d make better use of your time doing something other than watching Conspiracy T.V.
Every time a massacre happens, I wonder why it is such a part of the USA, and I think it is like the problem with obesity. Too many people there don’t value what they have got, they don’t know when to stop. I am utterly terrified of guns, sharp knives, fireworks, cars – anything that can harm. that means I am unlikely to ever use them against another person. But so many people in the states carry them with them, they are not scary things, not treated with respect. They are utterly mundane. They are accessories, they are not seen as dangerous. That’s the scary bit.
What happened in Sandy Hook Elementary School is an indication how depraved human had become. But it also showed the kindest side of those educators who never feared to put their lives at stake just so they could protect sweet innocent lives. Do we need violence just so we could show our humane side?
My prayers for the victims and their families.
WE have pretty strict gun control in Australia – it’s true that criminals do own them but they usually shoot each other. I don’t think we’ve ever had a mass school shooting or even any mass shooting bar one (just before our PM introduced gun control, actually). But to be honest I think it’s partly our culture. I think regardless of whether you’re going to ban all civilian guns, it’s madness to let people have military calibre weapons and not to check for criminal background, mental illness, previous violent episodes, etc.How will a nation like America ever change, though?
Thank you for your kind, thoughtful words.
Dear Diane,
Your comments seem personal. I am an expat living in the UAE and religiously followed the Sandy Hook shooting. I looked up Adam Lanza as well as the victims he murdered. There are many disturbed, socially isolated kids out there. I wasn’t particularly popular in high school either, I was aloof and never felt like i ‘fit in’. I didn’t really have friends. My life revolved around academics and books. But I never harboured a hatred towards my fellow classmates. I simply wished I could fit in. I did eventually, in college. I found what I was passionate about and now I have a healthy circle of friends. So, being socially isolated does not translate to a desire to kill. Lanza was obviously a disturbed child. He could not have been a sociopath though. A sociopath is not capable of feeling human emotion. Hence, someone with no human emotion could not possibly feel isolated because he isn’t part of a group. Lanza wanted to feel included, he desired interaction and attention. Years of being friendless, a sort of solitary confinement must have snapped him. If he didn’t have the close proximity for guns however, those kids would still have been alive. Those defenseless kids, whose only fault was having been present the day Lanza made his fateful choice. The real culprit here is just too obvious – guns. We will always have unbalanced, unstable citizens living among us. But we empower their vulnerability by making a killing machine so easily accessible to them. If we don’t severely limit the availability of guns, Lanza will only be just another mentally aggrieved killer and the kids that perished, only another statistic. The shooting that killed several fire fighters in New York only days after the Sandy Hook massacre is proof enough that not even a national tragedy that was widely publicized and publicly mourned is not enough to stop those with a killer’s agenda.
I thought a great deal about Newtown in the days after. it brought back the times in which I was involved in dangerous, what could have been life threatening incidents at the schools in which I taught for 32 years. I’d like to think I’d be a teacher who would knowingly give her life to protect her students. I don’t know that.
What I do is that like many other dedicated teachers our first reaction is kneejerk; protect the students. Keep them safe. You aren’t, at least I wasn’t, thinking, “well do I put myself between the shooter and the kids? or the propane tank or fire and the kids?” No.
We were trained to keep the safety of our students utmost in our minds at all times. I’d like to think I’d be one of those teachers who could do that for her kids because that is who they were to me, my children. My kids when they were with me, in my classroom, in my school.
There are no easy answers. There never will be. The day we stop trying to find the fast and simple solution is the day that we may begin to understand what really needs to be done. I hurt for the families and my heart goes out to them as do my prayers. I have children and have raised over 20 of them (fostering, adoption and biological). The loss of any one of them for any reason would be devastating.
I am still speechless regarding the carnage at Sandy Hook. I can’t comprehend it. I don’t understand the mindset that led to it. In fact I don’t want to understand it. Columbine, Beslan, Dunblane ………. names of places that will live forever in the World’s memory because of the slaughter of innocents.
The perpetrators of these horrors should not be afforded any form of publicity as I think it only feeds and spurs on other deranged minds.
The NRA offered the opinion that if Dawn Hochsprung had been carrying a gun, she could have dealt with the situation ! Total insanity !
We have many problems here in Ireland, not least of which is having to come to terms with, and attempt to heal, the decades of institutional abuse of children, but at least we don’t have “the right to bear arms.” The bloodshed on this island was horrific enough as it was without the psychopaths having “a right” to their weapons.
Diane,
Thank You for this…I also feel the sorrow surrounding this tragedy and it inspired me to write this blog post:
http://moonhippiemystic.com/2012/12/15/the-gift/
and I had written this one prior but it is appropriate to the grieving/Healing process:
http://moonhippiemystic.com/2012/12/08/let-it-rain/
Blessings,
Jennifer
Brought tears to my eyes Diane. There are no easy answers. Although you are right- We NEED to start asking questions. Rest in heaven to the little angels and victims. Caitlyn x
I still don’t know what to day. It was a horrific day and a horrible trajedy. My heart
continues to go out to these families and the whole community.
Your post is fitting, respectul and I thank you for writing it.
Wordsgood