“So I heard someone on local radio this morning lamenting a statistic which indicated 200 children under the age of 13 have died by “gun violence” in the year since Sandy Hook. That same person claimed 8 die every day, which would obviously suggest a completely different total, and there was no statistical breakdown as to how those deaths occurred.”
December 14, 2012 is a date which will always hold bitter and awful memories. The magnitude of the events of that day will forever make it difficult to reconcile in any format. Nevertheless, but with the deepest sympathy and respect for the families of those taken too soon, I feel it’s necessary to set the record straight, so we may honor the dead and finally extract some lesson from that horrible day.
The confusion, misinformation and irrational commentary which often follows such an emotional story, seems a sad but unavoidable consequence of the 24 hour news cycle. Pundits and politicians seize the moment (and the argument), for ratings and their own personal/political gain. The flames of rightful grief are fanned by the false rage of selfish ideologues. Facts are cast aside and the truth is often obscured or even ignored. In contrast, and speaking to statistics like those in the first paragraph, nearly 150 children died in home drowning incidents last year, and roughly 2 children were unbelted and subsequently killed every day in car crashes across the country. Mind you, this is not to minimize or diminish the deaths of Sandy Hook, or for that matter the death of any child for any reason. My point is simply this. It has become far too easy to blame without substantiation as a means to a yet undefinable end, than to root out the real causes of these monstrous and seemingly unexplainable acts of violence.
Reading the final law enforcement “Sandy Hook after-action reports” recently released, (with objection from that same law enforcement I would add), was both enlightening and frustrating. What infuriated me most however, was that law enforcement appeared to lean heavily on Adam Lanza’s access to the weapons he used to commit his heinous crime, yet seemed almost indifferent to the dozens of red flags waving throughout the report in terms of his mental and social faculties. Truth be told, Lanza should have been committed for treatment long before he ever laid hands on those firearms.
In fact, there is most certainly room for discussion and compromise when addressing the issue of mental illness and firearms, as there may also be for mental illness and a host of other potentially dangerous applications. However, when we look objectively at the individuals who commit these crimes, we see glaring instances of ignorance, procedural inconsistency, missed opportunities at intervention on multiple levels, societal cues and breakdowns, and yes, simply bad and even negligent parenting. But let’s be truthful here, no one wants to admit we’ve lost our way when it comes to our children. For instance, how do political and pundit types condone the murder of nearly 18,000 in the womb every year at 5 months, as well as travesties like partial birth abortion, yet claim to speak for the children? Is this hypocrisy or something else? The reality is, political correctness and the degradation of our generational and core value systems are corrupting the minds of our young people. When our children are unable to differentiate between a video game and the value of human life, “We the People” have failed them. The further “we” drift from these simple truths, the less they will mean to those in our charge.
Sandy Hook will forever be etched in our minds as a day when evil visited 20 innocents and the 6 adults who tried to save them. If I might promote one thought on that day one year later, it would be that we should not do the memories of the loved and lost, the injustice of smothering what we know are problems of the heart, with political, ideological and agenda driven solutions of the mind.
For now, and on this cold and snowy day of remembrance, I pray the souls of those little angels and their protectors continue to rest in peace, ever so tightly in the arms of almighty God.
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