As we mark the anniversary of this tragedy, we should never forget how it made us feel
Do you remember the tragedy at Sandy Hook? What you were doing when you heard about it? Did you find out from the news or social media? Do you remember the shock you felt? The horror? You need to.
My wife and I were moving the day it happened. She was pregnant, and we needed more space. Reports appeared about Sandy Hook, although at that time, nobody knew exactly what was happening. We knew it was bad, but we had no idea how awful it would become.
As the day wore on, the gruesome details made themselves known. Another madman with guns. Children killed. Heroic educators were cut down. People screaming in horror, in grief. The ensuing cacophony set an ominous overtone to an already stressful day.
“Surely, this has got to be the breaking point,” I thought, “America has to say enough now, doesn’t it?”
We all know the answer to that question. Since Sandy Hook, at the time of this writing, there have been almost 100 school shootings. And that number will inevitably climb higher. Horrifyingly, it will climb higher very soon.
On January 15, 2013, barely a month after Sandy Hook, a 21-year-old killed three people, including a 12-year-old girl, Taylor Cornett, in the parking lot of Hazard Community and Technical College, Kentucky.
Does it feel like it could never happen to you? Are you someone who believes the chances of a school shooting are so low that you don’t need to worry about it? Will that comfort you if it does?
On June 7, 2013, another shooter killed five people and wounded four others before being gunned down by police at Santa Monica Campus.
Our son is not yet two years old. He will be attending school soon. How long before he is subjected to his first active shooter drill? How scary will that be? Isn’t there a better way than this? Will I just accept the nightmares this gives me?
Since we have become parents, my wife and I are far more affected by current events. The news makes us cringe when it reports children being harmed. Our empathy has grown tremendously. We are now painfully aware of how others are affected by tragedy
On May 23, 2014, another killing spree, three stabbed to death, three more people shot to death, two more wounded, four more people with the killer’s car before he committed suicide, just outside the University of California, Santa Barbara.
My stomach is churning as I write this. Words don’t come easy. The horror of Sandy Hook echoes fresh when I think of my son. How can I not act? There’s no other first world nation that has to have this discussion. And the time for action is long long past.
Politicians are unwilling or unable to effect change on weapons responsibility legislation. But there is hope; the 2014 mid-terms put gun control directly on the ballot, and voters supported these measures heavily. There is a new avenue now, one that could circumvent the NRA.
Those who oppose sensible gun laws are the minority. They depend on the volume of their opinion to make up for the lack of volume in their numbers. They ride the #gunsense hashtag on twitter and attack its supporters with multiple troll accounts. They rely on cyber-bullying and cyber-stalking. They represent the worst of us all. Do not let them have their way.
Arguments of gun advocates rely on pivots, semantics, false equivalencies, and the fraudulence of charlatans like John R. Lott. Ultimately, all their words come down to is, “Nuh-UH!” That’s all. They just don’t wanna.
But we’ve been playing it their way for years now. There have been too many deaths. It’s not working. We need to change. Our children are too important for us not to.
The Second Amendment was written as being necessary to the security of the state. Today, the prevalence of easily obtainable firearms is now contrary to the security of the state.
As we mark the anniversary of Sandy Hook, we need to remember how it made us feel. The horror, shock, and grief we felt as a nation can never be forgotten. We must honor the victims of the Newtown tragedy, and work hard to change things for the better. Otherwise, this will keep happening again and again and again and again.
Children killed. Horror. Terror. Insanity. That is not acceptable. This will not do. We need to change this. You need to help.
As the holidays roll by, think on Sandy Hook. For those families, the holidays will never be the same again. Nor should they be for any of us. If we forget how that tragedy made us feel, we’ll be forced to feel that way again and again.
“Never believe that a few caring people can’t change the world. For, indeed, that’s all who ever have.” ~ Margaret Mead
And your beliefs are based on phallicy. 0.
Someone already said that.
And even spelled it right.
As always, it’s the disgusting trolls who rush in to have the first say. It’s as if you fall over yourselves to prove this guy right.
there is nothing that can prove this man right, because his beliefs are based on a fallacy.
So, “Nuh UH” then, Zero?
no more like “nice try, come back when you grow up”
If you want your comments to mean anything, you really ought to identify your targets: Who do you mean by “you” and who do you mean by “this guy”?
Yeah, I remember Sandy Hook. I also remember the two guys in camo caught by the police, one complied with orders and went spread-eagled on the ground; the other ran up the wooded hill behind the school and was captured — and both were whisked away in police cars, one telling the astonished reporters “We didn’t do it!”, and never being seen again and nothing about this ever appearing in any police report. I remember that none of the parents of the allegedly murdered children were allowed to view the remains of their children; they, and we, have to take the word of the police commissioner that any children were killed at all — and he threatened arrest of any individual who rejected the “official narrative,” just like a Soviet commissar. I remember that somehow FEMA “just happened” to be conducting an “active shooter” drill at a school three and a half miles away, and gee, isn’t it interesting that the helicopter video of the school and police response looked so much more like that school than it looked like Sandy Hook Elementary from the air?
I’m not totally convinced one way or the other, Chad, but there are so many holes and conflicting elements in the official narrative of the Sandy Hook fiasco that is looks like another false flag operation that somebody REALLY screwed up for a change. And then a parent of an allegedly killed child is videotaped laughing and joking just before he goes on camera and tearfully expresses his heartbreak over losing his son, and then we find out that he and another so-called “parent” are members of an acting troupe who hire themselves out for FEMA active shooter drills.
People like you are being played, Chad, and you are playing everyone else trying to advance your political agenda that requires everyone to be disarmed and defenseless because they wouldn’t put up with the imposition of your ideology on the people for a New York Second if they had the means to put a stop to it.
As for the rest of those alleged “active shooter” scenarios, I’d lay odds most of them are either out-and-out false flag ops or mentally-ill doofuses triggered off by agents provocateur with training in psychology, and the rest are copy cats. They would cease overnight if the idiots posting those “Gun Free Zone” massacre invitation signs would take them down and allow people their fundamental right to arms no government agency has the authority to infringe.
Do you fucking hear yourself?
“Crisis Actors” and all the other Wingnut shit?
Have you not learned that no one can keep a secret, much less the government?
So, doncline, let’s do a reality check….
Do you actually believe that it would take more than half a swat team to take you and all the rest of your friends hiding in the woods wearing camo out?
You clearly have not been paying attention.
Let’s say you got RPG’s and a Nuke.
You still lose.
Preventing idiots like you from owning assault weapons might actually save your life….
And so George Jetson goes ballistic over “crisis actors” and all that “Wingnut shit” as though his limited perception of the facts makes the slightest difference to reality.
What did you just say, George? Do you have any idea? Or are you just typing to hear your keyboard rattle? Think about it: Nothing you said in the post has anything to do with my analysis of the Sandy Hook fraud. What does “half a swat team” or anyone “hiding in the woods” have to do with the instant discussion?
Your post is illustrative of the totally disordered mind of the liberal yahoo who has lost his grasp on reality.
I know people who were personally and directly affected forever by the tragedy at Newtown. To suggest these events did not happen, or to buy into the insane theories forwarded by loons like Alex Jones, is unbelievably ignorant and offensive beyond the pale.
At best, you are grasping at easily debunked conspiracy theories, forwarded by those whose sanity is in question.
If you are in the habit of slapping people in the face with their pain like this Don, it’s no wonder you don’t feel safe without a gun. Otherwise you would never have the guts to say such awful things.
And that is absolutely the wrong reason to carry a firearm.
No, Chad, what is offensive and beyond the pale is conducting murderous false flag ops for the purpose of manipulating public opinion about the rights of the people. It’s too bad people have to be slapped to wake them up, but if those people — especially those identified as “crisis actors” — are going to exploit murder of children to justify taking rights away from people, then I have very little sympathy for them. I’ve had discussions and debates with some of those people, and it quickly became obvious they weren’t nearly as obsessed with the loss of their child than they were with pursuing the loss of my rights. The (alleged) murder of their child was nothing to them but a means to an end.
You liberals keep talking about “easily debunked conspiracy theories” but you never debunk them with facts, only with smarmy insults and your own version of insanity: “Banning guns leads to murderous massacres, so we need to ban more guns!” No, Chad: Your B.S. is what is extremely offensive and beyond the pale.
You think you have been playing our game this whole time? cute, we have been playing your game this whole time. no, our game has yet to begin. yours is Chess, with strict limitations, mine is Go with a bit more possibility.
Though you are right, it is not working. for all the laws that have been passed in your favor things have only gotten worse. we have a people problem not a gun problem, and until you wake up to that reality more and more people will continue to die including kids.
that you also have the gall to think the opinion or desires of someone from the east coast should have any bearing on the gun laws in my state of Kentucky is truly arrogant and ignorant. You can keep your gun control for all the good it will do you, ill keep my guns.