Ten years ago, a deranged young man blasted his way into the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. He killed 20 first-grade children and six staff members, including the principal, who tried to stop him at the school’s door.
The nation was stunned. President Obama wept. There was a widespread sense that this heinous act would lead to decisive action by Congress. It didn’t. The gun violence against children continues.
Why? The Republican Party has sworn allegiance to an extreme interpretation of the Second Amendment in which every person has the unfettered right to own and carry guns. and the Supreme Court, now securely in the hands of hard-right conservatives after Trump added three justices, is overturning long-standing limits on gun ownership. There are more guns than people in the U.S., and so far as conservatives are concerned, there is no need to restrict their availability and use (except in the halls of Congress, the Supreme Court, and other special places.)
Among the weapons used at Sandy Hook were a Bushmaster XM15-E2S and a Glock 20SF handgun. The killer first murdered his mother, who bought the guns and took him to firing ranges. When fist responders arrived, he killed himself.
Not long after the massacre of babies at Sandy Hook, the professional liars entered the scene. They said that there was no massacre. Everything we saw on television was staged, they said. The “parents” who were mourning were actually “crisis actors.” Someone sent me a link to a video purporting to show that Sandy Hook never happened; it was a hoax created to promote gun control legislation.
Alex Jones leapt on the story and repeatedly broadcast it to his many followers. Some of them harassed the families who had lost a child or a mother or a sister, even sending them death threats.
Alex Jones has this year been convicted of defamation and ordered to pay fines exceeding $1 billion. He moved his assets and declared bankruptcy.
There have been so many mass murders in the past decade that it’s impossible to remember them all. We remember the massacre of 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, both because of the numbers and the heroic response of the survivors, who lobbied fiercely for gun control. Uvalde got our attention because of the number of children killed: 19, along with two teachers. And it got our attention because of the sheer incompetence of the law enforcement officers, who arrived on the scene by the hundreds and failed to enter the classrooms where the killer was for over an hour.
Of one thing we can be sure, there will be more mass killings of students. Uvalde will not be last. Schools now practice active shooter drills. Some teachers are armed. School security has been enhanced. Door locks are common.
But when the next killer pulls a gun out of his backpack or blasts through the entry with an assault weapon, children and staff will die. We will mourn them and their teachers as we have before. And then there will be another. And another.
Nothing will change until we enact strong gun control laws that limit access to guns. That won’t happen unless the voters elect people sworn to protect the lives of their children.
Tragically moving piece on NPR this morning about one affected family here: https://www.npr.org/2022/12/14/1141308342/sandy-hook-10-years-newtown-mass-shooting
The saddest Amen I’ve ever uttered
I am not so sure that the purveyors of suspicion and hatred are not more responsible for these continued depredations than the presence of guns. I know that this is a moot point: what is mightier, the pen or the sword?
I would in this case come down on the side of the pen. Knowing that there are literally thousands of potential mass killers listening to the hatred spewed by the Alex Jonesish crowd, we continue to have public figures who normalize what these idiots are saying. Some public figures get political support from this, others get notoriety they hope can be monetized. Stirring hatred with the voice is perhaps more influential than spreading firearms.
Together their toxic mix is an ongoing tragedy.
I’m wishy washy about most things, but I am absolutely certain that easy access to semi-automatic weapons is the major cause of mass shootings. Allowing gun rights to trump human lives is one of our countries biggest sins.
Guns are the leading cause of death in children. That should be repulsive to a nation, but it isn’t. We are living in the American the NRA has bought and paid for.
He can’t be a man, ’cause he
doesn’t smoke the same
as me.
The dif between men and
boys, is the cost of
the toys.
Big boys don’t cry.
Real men are masculine.
Real men, man up.
Real men take it like
a man.
Real men fight.
Real men bring home
the bacon.
Real men can fix
everything.
Real men, on and on…
The mass shooter is
invariably a gunman.
Why are the killers
almost always male,
white, and under 30?
What “vote” will
change that.
What law could change
that?
Point, If we refuse to turn
our attention on how
we raise boys, beginning
in SCHOOL, many alienated,
lonely and bullied males,
will continue the
never-ending cycle.
Real men bring home the big-gun.
Real men shoot first and ask questions later.
Real men hold a gun to their wife’s head and threaten to blow their brains out.
Real men point a 44 caliber revolver that they just shot an unknown number of times at someone and ask “Are you feeling lucky, punk? Are you?”
It’s a myth that mass shooters are almost always white.
https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/public-mass-shootings-database-amasses-details-half-century-us-mass-shootings
I can accept that there are gravely disturbed people in this world who kill.
I can bitterly accept that the NRA would hide their eyes and ears to this. They have blood on their hands.
What is unacceptable is that piece of trash Alex Jones.
I will not continue as my subsequent comments on the creature are particularly vitriolic.
I cannot accept the NRA would hide their eyes. They need to act. And, they could do it shrewdly if they weren’t just stupid.
They’re just stupid!
The old (like really old) NRA would have been all over this for gun safety and at minimum, permits and registration.
I got in a comments back-and-forth with a gun fanatic on an article and he was quick to point out hunters have to follow rules!
They’d GAIN favor with a 70% gun concern in the country the fools in the GOP would score votes if they said “darn right, permits which include must report stolen gun (or legal penalty if not and that gun shows up), red-flag laws. That’s it – their hunters, the OLD NRA (just like the old GOP), and common sense people going after swing votes would score. And the gun nuts would get over it if they got enough tweets telling them too. Stupid.