Love & prayers to Connecticut

I am simply appalled at yesterday's tragic events.

All of the recent mass shootings are despicable, 

but such a deadly attack at an elementary school is particularly heinous.

I don't care how mentally estranged you are,

shooting hundreds of rounds at  little 5 year olds 

is a disgusting, heartless, cowardly, unforgivable thing to do.

No parent sends their child to school, especially young children,

with the thought that such an unthinkable nightmare could ever occur.

Guns extend the reach of violence, and,

with our national silence on senseless gun laws, so do we.

Guns make it easier for a killer.

They make it impossibly hard for parents who arrive, dazed and pleading,

at the firehouse in Connecticut where the surviving schoolchildren were taken,

and don’t find the one they were looking for there.

 - The New Yorker

Why does any civilian need a gun?

If no one had access to guns,

then one certainly wouldn't need to be packing heat in their purse to protect themselves from the hypothetical gun man on their neighborhood streets, right?

And last time I checked, hunters don't use glocks to shoot at deer and turkeys.

(Deer and turkey meat they could simply purchase at their local grocer, mind you.  But that's another rant for another day.)

But I suppose a gunless world is a Utopian world.

Unrealistic, perhaps.

But I think stricter gun control, namely a psychological evaluation,

 is a MUST on gun applications.

Just think of all the paperwork and screening people must go through

to get a pet, adopt a child, apply for a job, etc.

And in the state of IL, all you need is a driver's licence and money to get a gun.

That simply baffles me beyond belief.

On our local news this morning, they interviewed a representative from the NRA

who stated that more stringent gun control isn't the answer (of course)

and that some of this tragedy could have been prevented

if the teachers  had been armed,

insinuating that these childrens' deaths are the school's fault.

My jaw is still on the floor.

Sure, schools can enforce more stringent security measures - 

Locked doors, security codes, doormen.
But this particular serial killer breached the school's imposed security measures.

And my mother, a teacher, certainly didn't earn her masters degree to be an armed deputy.

Her profession, by definition, is "one who's occupation is to instruct."
Teachers serve to provide the future generation an education in a nurturing environment.
Not to go Rambo on some psycho's ass.

The people of the Newton community are regular civilians, just like you and me.
We go to our jobs - teachers, nurses, business men/women - to provide a service to others.
Let's leave protection by fire arms to the professionals.

And I understand that there are rights we are born with as Americans

and it is the government's responsibility to protect such rights.

Freedom of speech, voting, and even arguably, the right to own a firearm.

But in that case, why aren't two men or two women allowed to get married?

Why are my reproductive rights or people's access to health care at jeopardy?

If American citizens are born with the right to own a gun

(as the NRA will eagerly point out),

then people are certainly born with the right to get married to whom they choose

and make decisions about their own body, no? 

I think it's sad that the government gets to choose which rights they will protect.

They choose to protect a mother (of a mentally ill young man)'s right to own an assault rifle

(that she doesn't really need, in my opinion)

but not the right for two people who love each other to get married?

Confounding.     

My hearts go out to the families

who lost the little lights of their lives yesterday,

to all the parents, grandparents, and siblings who's Christmases will forever be marred,

to a shaken small community,

to the survivors who will never understand "why", who's innocence was ripped away,

and mostly to all the new little angels in Heaven,

who's lives were taken far too early and senselessly,

may you rest in peace.

That's my political rant for the day.

And now I'm off to hug my little bean even tighter 

and thank God that we are safe and sound.