“For all the moms and dads out there,” Nicole Hockley calls out to her TEDx audience (@ 5:40),”you can stop this happening to you.” Ms. Hockley’s referring to the tragic death of her son Dylan, one of twenty first-graders murdered by Sandy Hook spree killer Adam Lanza. “Because every gun-related death is a preventable death. These are not random acts. You can never say ‘this will not happen to me.’ This can happen to anyone at any place at any time.” Gun rights advocates will immediately see that the born-again civilian disarmament crusader is both completely wrong and totally right, and not a small bit confused . . .
For one thing, Ms. Hockley asserts that “gun-related death” isn’t random. In the next breath, the bereaved mother maintains that a spree killer can attack “anyone at any place at any time.” A spree killing that can happen anywhere at any time is, by definition, a random event – at least from the victim’s perspective. While we don’t know why Lanza targeted Sandy Hook Elementary School, it’s hard to see Dylan’s death as anything other than random.
Clearly, understandably, Ms. Hockley rejects that idea. The concept that life is random – that we live in a world where things happen to us without rhyme or reason – is difficult enough for people who haven’t lost their young child in a hail of bullets unleashed by a crazed killer. Positive thinking preacher Joel Osteen’s enormous following is proof enough that most people prefer to believe that everything happens for a reason. No doubt Joel would try to console Ms. Hockley with the thought that Dylan’s death was part of God’s plan.
Odds are Ms. Hockley would reject that view as well. What kind of god allows the violent death of a six-year-old and nineteen of his classmates on an otherwise quiet December afternoon in a good school in a peaceful Connecticut suburb? Which leaves Ms. Hockley with very few options for coming to terms with Dylan’s demise. The only logical answer: the killing wasn’t random and God’s got nothing to do with it. Human action is to blame. Or, in her son’s case, inaction.
Ms. Hockley’s steadfast crusade for gun control (i.e. gun death prevention) reveals a subconscious decision to transform inevitable, inescapable “if only I’d” regrets into “if only they’d” accusations. Simply put, Ms. Hockley’s world view – indeed her sanity – can only survive if she believes that her son died because someone should have done something. In this, she’s right, of course.
The Connecticut Office of the Child’s report into Adam Lanza’s mental health reveals a pervasive and shocking failure to treat a child who was clearly and severely mentally ill from an early age. Lanza should have been institutionalized. Did his mother know about Adam’s fanboy wall art: a collection of newspaper clippings of Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik‘s horrific crime? She should have, and insisted that her youngest boy was put under lock and key. As should his father.
Equally, we’ve learned that Sandy Hook administrators entrusted the janitor – and only the janitor – to lock-down classrooms from the outside in the event of an active shooter attack. It was an obviously and irretrievably flawed plan created by people who should have known better. (Who should certainly know better now, after the NRA’s School Shield Task Force released its excellent school safety report.) Also, the police officers responding to the school delayed their entry, giving Lanza an “extra” opportunity to kill.
There’s more. Sandy Hook students should have been instructed to disperse into the surrounding woods during the attack, instead of “sheltering” in a classroom closet like sheep ready for the slaughter. And the big one: someone inside the school should have been armed. Someone should have been equipped, trained and prepared to stop an active shooter or shooters as soon as humanly possible. More than one someone, in fact. Multiple Sandy Hook staff members should have been armed, trained and prepared to shoot a spree killer or killers as soon as humanly possible.
To her everlasting credit, Ms. Hockley is campaigning for mental health awareness programs to identify potential spree killers in schools (Adam Lanza was banned from school more than a year before the killing) and on social media. She understands the power of personal responsibility and intervention. But Ms. Hockley ignores the obvious institutional failures that enabled the Sandy Hook massacre and aligns herself with Sandy Hook Promise, a group that lobbies to restrict Americans’ natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms. An effort that increases the chances of another Sandy Hook, rather than diminishes them.
I don’t mean to diminish Ms. Hockley’s suffering or question her right to share her grief in whatever way she chooses. But she’s wrong: not every gun death is preventable. As long as firearms exist, there is no way we can prevent all firearms-related fatalities. We can and should work to prevent firearms-related injury and death amongst the young, the old and everyone in between. But we should do so in the most effective way possible, without unrealistic expectations, which always lead to unintended consequences. For our gun rights keep us and our loved ones safe. Except when they don’t.
C O M P L E T E L Y
Like “Completely” with huge gaps or holes in it.
So, you were lulled into a false sense of security and sent your kid to a dangerous place and they did not return.
So, help to disarm the population so that you can be lulled into a different false sense of security that others kids will be safe, or that you will be safe in your home, or that ISIS wouldn’t like to do the Ezra Pound flambeaux thing to you, or that China wouldn’t like to arm our enemies and get them to kill us (if they don’t succeed by putting lead in cheap toothpaste or sheetrock). Or that a few hundred illegals aren’t waiting to move into her neighborhood if only D.C. would issue them a S.S. card and a driver’s license, or that you wouldn’t be fertilizer in seconds as the disarmed participant in a Civil War, or being physically warred upon by gov’t run by a madman hatched in Kenya. . .
Without having watched the video, I don’t think there’s anything more to add. I may revise that after being able to watch, but otherwise: excellently stated.
I’m not going to watch it. You and I know what must be done.
Exactly. I didn’t watch it nor will I. We all know what needs to be done, what steps need be taken to enhance school safety. The time for talk is over. We have identified the problems and practicable solutions.
It’s an economic issue. Clearly school shootings could be prevented. We can answer that by examining why President Obama’s children are safe. No, we all can’t have that level of safety. So it’s economics that play into the solution. Everything in life is almost always the result of two things, the style or the price.
Mental illness is tough to tackle because it’s horridly expensive. It”s a resource draining bottomless pit for money strapped agencies. Governments will never effectively tackle mental illness….EVER. That’s a fact we might as well embrace. They will throw a little money here and there to shut people up and put on a show of “look what we did” but it will little more than smoke and mirrors.
School safety at the physical level could be addressed. Making all school entrances secure and resistant to armed forced entry. Just like an armored car, it provides time to counter with a response. The second tier of school safety, armed personnel at schools. We could make schools so safe that they could not be forcefully entered, but this would be prohibitively expensive. So the practical and effective solution, make schools difficult to get in and have armed and trained people available to respond to an attempted intrusion.
Saying armed response in schools if not a solution is a lie. Why do the elitist have armed security then?
Obama wanted to parade school kids around in front of the camera after SH. but he didn’t want to talk about his own children’s security, even in general terms. Why? The answer is obvious. We only have to accept it.
Finally, we have to recognize that school shootings, however distasteful, are actually a rare occasion.
It’s only after a truly ghastly and unspeakable act, do the tough questions come out. Look at the death of the Jordanian pilot. Burned in a cage, ghastly and unspeakable after be-headings became common place.
Background checks will do nothing. Gun control will do nothing. Efforts to remove access to weapons to certain folks, along with secure storage will help as will preventing easy access to schools and having armed folks on school grounds. There are easy solutions, it’s just nobody wants to spend the money to actually implement them.
Emotion driven comments from bereaved parents, likely influenced from well known anti gunners, will do nothing to further obscure clear facts.
I saw enough of the video to see the she was hot before 12.14.12
@dave
Do you think that Ms. Hockley needs to see this posted below an article written about her and her views? Do you think that comment reflects well upon TTAG and its commentators? I don’t.
The woman lost her 6 year old son. I think most would understand that the grief involved in that would make someone look unhealthy. She probably doesn’t need it pointed out to her by someone who doesn’t even have the self respect to capitalize his own name.
All that being said I hope she reads this blog post and realizes that’s she’s got good but impossible goals because her logic is flawed big time. If she succeeds in her plan she will have nothing to show for it except unintended consequences.
I think the best way to keep this from happening to your child is to keep them the hell out of our broken public school system.
100% agree.
So let’s say they can wave a magic wand and remove all guns. Now if someone decides to attack my wife, all 120 pounds of her, and they are 200-250 pounds: Where is her ability to effectively fight back? Then after it was over I could say, “if only they hadn’t taken her guns from her, then she’d have the ability to fight back.”
And that’s what the anti-gun people are missing, they are effectively removing the right to self defense.
[Insert video of Chinese mass school knife attack here]
But my point is, even if they remove ALL weapons then people will be using their hands and feet and then it’s biggest wins.
And the Chinese gasoline bomb attacks, which killed more people than Lanza.
This is a TEDx talk, organized by some local activists. As for the real deal, here is a more thoughtful discussion on guns: http://youtu.be/LjAsM1vAhW0
Dan,
Not sure I like this… as much as you do. at about the 10 minute mark he starts to say that the reason for such peaceful times is State control of violence and weapons…
The Tedx talks definitely don’t have the credibility of the Ted talks. There seems to be a pretty low bar for content.
No.
He advocates a monopoly on firearms. His firearms.
“Guns for me and not for thee…”
His solution is the exact thing that motivated our founders to leave Europe in the first place…
the ultimate responsibility for this child’s death lies with its parents, and they just can’t handle that truth.
I disagree with that assessment. For example, if your kid (assuming you have children) was killed at school today, would it be your fault? I’m not sure how it could be.
What this small group of Sandy Hook parents (and it is a small percentage of them) is doing is blaming the gun. Why? Because the gun was an “outsider” that was manufactured far away from Newtown and brought into their community. They don’t want to admit that a complete monster was living right under their nose. He ate at their restaurants, shopped in their stores, and went to their schools. The personification of pure evil walked their streets and no one did anything about it. They went about their days and looked the other way hoping it would just go away. This is the guilt that their community will have to live with. Many Newtown residents have already acknowledged this guilt and are dealing with it. These mothers, on the other hand, have chosen to blame an inanimate object in order to avoid going through the natural grieving process. My personal opinion is that their “crusade” is just a defense mechanism that is temporarily filling the great void that was created that tragic day.
I think he may have meant Lanza as the “it” in question, and no doubt exists, Lanza’s parent ARE at fault. The father was driven out for trying to do something about the situation and the mother is beyond prosecution for her criminal culpability in facilitating her son’s crimes.
Au contraire, Mr Peterson. If you send your child to school it is your fault. There is no requirement to send your child to a school that has inadequate security. It is your responsibility to safeguard your child. Not someone else. It may be a little outside your comfort zone to home school but millions do. Have you ever considered why the govt. is running the education system? It is not to educate. It is to indoctrinate and enslave.
With respect,
David
Negative. Blame one Adam Lanza, who should have faced the death penalty had he not taken his own life. Lanza could have used a number of weapons, but he chose to murder his own mother and steal her guns. Punishing the guilty party is justice. Punishing everyone you chose is tyranny.
There are a lot of similarities between speaking out of grief and drunk dialing.
“Multiple Sandy Hook staff members should have been armed, trained and prepared to shoot a spree killer or killers as soon as humanly possible”
I once again have to interject my modification of this sentiment; “ALL” Sandy Hook staff members should have been armed, etc. That concept brings all manner of win. Every staff member would have to have a background check. Every teaching college would have to include firearms training and certification. Those extremely idiotic about firearms can find another line of work, and stop influencing our children. And I’d bet that simple *attempts* to shoot up a school would decrease by 99%. Exceptions being SBT in lieu of SBC.
Cops are required to be armed, teachers should also be required to be armed, everywhere.
Certainly this could be carried out at a few schools as a pilot project.
Completely agree, they all should be armed.
That’s why I don’t have much of a problem with the shelter in place and barricade IF the teachers are armed and can pop him as soon as he breaks through and enters the room. With unarmed teachers RF is right send them running
It’s all an illusion (delusion). We humans try to make sense of things to feel empowered or safe. It’s a lie we comfort ourselves with, yet nonetheless it’s a lie. The only truth of life is that shit happens. You can’t predict it. You can’t stop it. And that makes us feel powerless, helpless, and afraid. This is the human weakness.
My son’s name was Eugene. We spent our last day with him fishing. It was a wonderful day. We woke at 2 AM to the constant ringing of the house phone. The State Trooper would only tell us we NEEDED to get down to the hospital right away and he would meet us there. Eugene was dead. Three brothers with him were dead. Our youngest son was the only one left alive. A motorist pulled him out of the burning car. He was in a coma. Traumatic Brain Injury. This was our new reality. And in the years since, both my wife and I have gone through every “what if” you can imagine. So I can tell you two things. Carpe Diem – Leave nothing unsaid, nothing undone. For we weep not for the loss, but for what we have not said or done. Second, there’s no one and nothing to blame; Shit Happens. And, until you come to realize that, you’re still grieving and nothing will ever make sense.
Well said Gman.
I am sorry for your loss of your sons.
In spite of your great loss, it sounds like you have healed (as much as one can heal from such a huge loss) and have moved on with your life. More than that, you are even able to dispense wisdom to others. I applaud you sir.
Sorry for your loss, brother. And yes, it don’t ever quit hurting, you just learn to live with it.
I heard a great conversation about a child’s death that has always stuck with me from a Freakonomics podcast: http://freakonomics.com/2013/01/03/how-did-%E2%80%9Cfreakonomics%E2%80%9D-get-its-name-full-transcript/ I hope it means something to you too. Peace.
“DUBNER: So Levitt, I remember something you once said that really stuck with me. It was about your first child, your son, Andrew, who died very young around his first birthday, is that right?
LEVITT: Yeah, nine days after his first birthday.
DUBNER: And I remember you saying, this was when I first got to know you, I remember you saying that most people didn’t ask or say anything about Andrew and about his death because they think that you won’t want to talk about it, but in fact that you are the one that does want to talk about it, and in fact they’re the ones who don’t want to talk about it.
LEVITT: I think that a lot of people don’t want to talk about the death of someone else’s loved one because they fear that it will bring up bad feelings and memories for the bereaved. But if you’ve ever been bereaved, you know that you feel the weight of the loss all the time. It’s always in your mind. It’s not that you forget that your son died or forget that your sister died. So it’s crazy to think that by bringing up the name of the person who’s died, or story about the person who’s died that you’re dragging someone back to a place, because they’re always in that place.
DUBNER: Is the same thing true with the death of your sister, Linda, now that you are kind of, I don’t know about happy or eager to talk about it, if those are the right words, that you want to talk about it, as opposed to people who might know but would shy away from asking about it thinking that you don’t?
LEVITT: Yeah, maybe I’m unusual, but I love to talk about my son, Andrew. I love to talk about Linda. And really Linda in her own way was so special and so alive, really it’s a strange thing. She was really a homebody, like me, tremendously antisocial. She would much rather be at home than actually talking to people. But unlike me, she had this amazing gift where every time she entered the room, she became the center of attention. I really cannot think of a time when she was in a room where she didn’t become the focal point of everything that was happening. And I think that aliveness that she had really lends itself to be talked about.”
Thank you Gman, for telling us about your sons.
I for one have taken a very important lesson from that, and hope I can live up to your words.
She (and many of her ilk) probably lay in bed every night praying for a “Gun Rapture”.
! Is that when Saint Cooper calls us to that great big competition shoot in the sky!? 😉
the system is truly at fault here. they failed that little troubled boy in every way possible. his parents also share the blame. 50/50 i guess.
“To her everlasting credit, Ms. Hockley is campaigning for mental health awareness programs to identify potential spree killers in schools (Adam Lanza was banned from school more than a year before the killing) and on social media.”
Unfortunately such commendable goals often condense into mind numbing “Zero Tolerance” measures that result in “Pop Tart Gun” suspensions and the one from last week where a kid in West Texas was suspended for telling another kid he could make him disappear with his magic ring.
No one wants to stand up and take responsibility for using judgment anymore.
This was my thinking as well. I know I said stupid, and threatening, things when I was younger. Probably some which could have been used to put me away. I’m having trouble putting to words what I’m trying to say, but it kind of breaks down to, “we need to judge by actions rather than…” but that leaves us with criminally insane folks who don’t get treatment until they “go off.” Again, I’m not sure I’m getting across what I want to say. Sorry to ramble, but it is a troubling issue. And double-edged sword at best.
“unrealistic expectations” “unintended consequences” These phrases encapsulate precisely why Lanza and others ARE able to do what they do. I feel bad for this woman’s loss. I feel even worse listening to her advocate for ALL children EVERYWHERE to be left open to the same fate. She refuses to accept reality, instead desiring that everyone else be subjected to the same in the name of “fairness”. She will deny that is her intent, in the final measure that is the result.
As for teachers/staff at that school being armed, I’m certain that there were/are veterans working in that school, as they are in every school in the country, and they already have the requisite training to carry. And unless they were dishonorably discharged they are already qualified and vetted.
And also effective.
You’re 100 percent right, the only way to give these kids a chance is to fight back
Confirming the point of vets at school; my neighbor is a retired school custodian. He tells me that a lot of the guys serving as such are vets. Presumably, a lot of the others are not graduate Education majors. Seems to me that these are the guys we ought to start trying to arm. Few probably have an aversion to going armed or using a gun in an emergency. My neighbor told me that it would be a problem for these guys to keep a gun on-body because often they have to bend down or crawl under something to do their ordinary duties. Even so, these problems could probably be worked-out.
He also told me that the school staff are the biggest problem with undermining security. They leave doors propped open that are supposed to close and lock automatically.
Short of arming-up, there are some things that schools could do to beef-up security. Nevertheless, for the more extreme cases, nothing will prevent entry and nothing will stop a determined attack other than multiple carbines. If our schools won’t undertake the steps (locked doors, etc.) to improve security they certainly won’t arm their staffs. Responsibility falls on the school boards and the parents who vote these school boards into office.
Blaming the perpetrators and their custodians (e.g., the Lanzas) does nothing to focus responsibility on terrorists. What we really ought to be worried about are cases such as Beslan (Russia), Peshawar (Pakistan) and Charlie Hebdo (France). How does gun-control stop terrorism?
I know for a fact our local highschool and elementary have combat vets working in them. Teachers and custodial staff and admin.
It is a progressive person in a deep progressive state. They will always find someone/something else to blame versus ALL the institutional systems of government that ALL failed on that day and in the events leading up to that day. Government is fallible except in the eyes of progressives who believe it has no faults and treat it as a religion.
Propped up by post tragedy civilian disarmament complex and DNC operatives all the way up to the POTUS, her feelings have been fostered, nourished, and reinforced until all logic has been lost.
Like someone with a disease without a name, once it is given a name, there is comfort, there is belief that a cure can be found even if no cure really exists and the mission becomes once named to find a cure even if one is beyond current science’s understanding.
She believes that the disease is called “guns” and that the cure is to eliminate ALL “guns” — the symptoms and the problems is actually progressive and neo-liberal thinking that puts blame on anything or anyone other than the institutions that failed. There is exactly two people to blame, the shooter and the mother and the accomplice is all the institutions who knew there was a problem and did absolutely nothing. All other legal gun owners are blameless but all effort has been make them the evil to be eradicated.
For all the talk of the families to be “left alone”, they constantly put themselves in the spotlight including inserting themselves in the politics of other state governments. She has found a cause through external reinforcement that emotionally fills a gap and she will continue to peruse it because it feels good, all the while telling everyone “she wants to be left alone” but she will never leave anyone else alone.
I cannot completely blame her, because of her tragic loss. But, I have a problem that to fill that emotional hole she feels that she must lobby to take away the rights of all gun owners because of one lunatic. Paraphrasing Madison in Federalist 46 the abuse of a right by one is not an argument against rightful use by others.
Nothing will ever satiate her loss, but she will for the rest of her life try to sate it by trying to take away the rights of people who did nothing wrong that day.
This is why the fight for gun rights will never end.
The Antis love to harp on one specific method of death to then claim that if only guns would magically disappear everything would be wonderful.
But when all murder is counted, the US doesn’t even make the top 20. And all in the top 20 have strict ant-gun laws.
So yes, more guns in private hands does mean less crime in general and substantially less murder and other violent crime categories. (Some European countries have rape rates that link directly to multi-culti Islam coddling. Like Sweden).
Then there is the unaccounted for murder numbers in places like NoKo where most of the criminals wear a military uniform. Or Mexico where the wear the Federali uniform.
I don’t mean to diminish Ms. Hockley’s suffering or question her right to share her grief in whatever way she chooses. But she’s wrong: not every premature death is preventable. As long as humans exist, there is no way we can prevent all premature fatalities. We can and should work to prevent criminal and accidental injury and death amongst the young, the old and everyone in between. But we should do so in the most effective way possible, without unrealistic expectations, which always lead to unintended consequences. For our right to bear amrs keep us and our loved ones safe. Except when they don’t.
fixed it for you. even if you uninvented firearms, we, as humans, can use swords, spears, and pointy sticks to kill and maim and the gun used at sandy hook was only a tool used by a deranged individual.
WTF is world with today’s world you ask….simple…people no longer work pain on individual level. Now when a tragic loss of a child, one tries to understand, seeks legislators to grieve with, asks why….then creates a 503 and jumps in on a new career, claims the moral high ground and makes money off the dead.
The new world is a cash cow.
“The Connecticut Office of the Child’s report into Adam Lanza’s mental health reveals a pervasive and shocking failure to treat a child who was clearly and severely mentally ill from an early age. Lanza should have been institutionalized.” TTAG readers should realize that new mental health diagnosis would label the majority of gun owners as mentally ill.
Thanks, RF, for driving home the point (“again, still”) that Guns save Lives. This message never gets old.
“No doubt Joel would try to console Ms. Hockley with the thought that Dylan’s death was part of God’s plan.”
“The only logical answer: the killing wasn’t random and God’s got nothing to do with it.”
I don’t know Joel Osteen’s heart, but his preaching is not biblical. Forgive me if this sounds condescending RF, but you seem to be confused about the nature of God.
Any assertion about the nature of God has to be supported by The Holy Bible. I will cede to you (no, I am not a relativist) that, as you are Jewish, your point of reference is collectively what I call the “Old Testament.” Both Old and New Testaments support the assertion that 1) God is active in our lives, and 2) He does have a plan. Our difficulty is in not understanding it (Isaiah 55). I can’t refrain from stating that the Old Testament predicts the New, i.e. the birth, death, and resurrection of the Messiah.
Satan’s downfall is his pride. The unrepentant pride of man carries the same price that Satan will pay: eternal damnation in the lake of fire.
I’m pretty sure he was going through her thought process, not expounding his own.
In a hypothetical world, if the teachers had been armed, and their armed response had stopped Lanza’s crime, and no children had been murdered by a madmen, what would the conversation be like? Would the gun’s presence be recognized for the abilty to stop crime? Would they other side still lament the “other gun in the room”?
Would the other side see the light? Is that what it will take?
Heart rending, touching, very well produced and completely deludional.
Who would think that the siren song for voluntary disarmament; to become a helpless and defenseless peasant, peon and outright slave could sound so reasonable and “commonsense”.
Adam Lanza was not banned from school a year before 12/14, nor was he homeschooled.
“Sandy Hook students should have been instructed to disperse into the surrounding woods during the attack, instead of “sheltering” in a classroom closet like sheep ready for the slaughter. . . Multiple Sandy Hook staff members should have been armed, trained and prepared to shoot a spree killer or killers as soon as humanly possible.”
Well said, Robert. As an expression of grief, of lament, her comments are completely understandable. But as a moral imperative for specific change, they fail. Gun control ideology is predicated on symbolism, on ideas about utopian nirvanas that can happen if only people would get their minds right. That, of course, is their appeal to people with an emotional need to make lamentations. But they don’t reflect reality because, in truth, they can’t. Getting minds right has never been a very effective strategy for making meaningful or even useful changes. The world just doesn’t work that way.
I try to get people to understand the the individual is responsible for their own actions or lack thereof.
In this case Adam is responsible for his actions, period. He shot those people.
His mother is responsible for her lack of action, period. She didn’t help him or get him help, and she paid for it.
Ms. Hockley is struggling with this, as many of us do because she wants to correct the person or thing that is responsible for her childs death. The problem is she can’t fix it because the opportunity has passed. I feel for her but I can’t help her. I will give her a little credit because she is trying to do something, and while I think it is the wrong thing, she is still trying to do something. I only hope that someday, sooner would be better than later, she will come to terms with the idea that while she may have done everything that she could think of to protect her child, and something outside of her control took her child away, and that something was NOT an inanimate object.
First off-home school people. Please don’t use Joel Osteen as an example of Christian thought. I believe God is a good God but we live in an evil and depraved world. Jesus said “the thief comes to kill,steal and destroy-I have come to give you abundant life”…No amount of positive confession will change the nature of evil. Sell your cloak and buy a sword…
Amen
FWW, there are often posts here advising people to homeschool, not that I disagree, but what is motivation behind your advise to do the same?
I’ll keep my cloak, already have several nice “swords”, and actual swords. And lets us not forget the KaBar that lives on my belt, SoB, in a reversed sheath. I think JC would like that bit-O-steel.
I grieve for Ms Hockley’s loss, and hope she finds her way to working on real change, in improving mental health training and reporting procedures so family and police can do the right thing for their suffering relatives, when they need help the most, before a tragedy occurs.
The same lesson learned on Elliot Rodgers, so tragically disregarded, again, by the professional gun-grabbers, sock-puppets, and politicians who profit from the pain of these parents, in order to grubbily pander for power and money.
Sorry for her loss. I do not understand the preoccupation with “gun deaths”. Are “gun deaths” any more horrific than knife deaths, beating deaths or death by any other type of violence? The answer is that these people, in thier grief, allow themselves to be used by those that want everyone defenseless. I am disgusted by those that victimize the greiving in this way. May they get the judgement they deserve someday.
She won’t allow her self to cry over the loss of her son? That goes against any kind of grief counseling I ever heard of. I feel sorry that she seems unable to put some aspect of this horrible event behind her and try to live a somewhat pleasant life. I hate to think how her outlook on life now is effecting her other son.
The ONLY way all violent deaths (both man and animal alike) will ever stop is when all life on earth is extinct.
“As long as firearms exist, there is no way we can prevent all firearms-related fatalities.”
While I can’t disagree with the statement, I would not have expressed the idea this way. I would say “As long as people exist, there is no way we can prevent violent fatalities.”
Until parents get fed up with their kids coming home in body bags and demand better school security measures; this school shooting crap will continue unabated. Wait until we get the ISIL sympathizers involved in the school shootings, then the frequency will really skyrocket. Until then, more gun control gimmicks will surface.
Being a victim/ survivor/ relative of a victim, makes you an authority on nothing.
One sentence of the article stood out.
“As long as firearms exist, there is no way we can prevent all firearms-related fatalities.”
Right there, get rid of firearms, you CAN prevent firearms reated fatalities, robberies, etc. I AM a gun owner and I DO believe in 2A rights. Just sayin…
BTW, Pennsylvania is a dream state in re: to 2A rights vs. Illinois.
In China they have people go to schools and slash childrens throats with knives. The evil and the crazies will always be out there and always find ways to harm the innocents. Yo can’t ban crazy so you have to allow others a way to protect themselves instead of cowering be hind maybe locked doors.
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