I find myself reeling tonight, even moreso than last. Questioning everything, and wondering what the future holds for me, my children, this Nation. Grasping at the smallest of details from the news, hoping that each small discovery gets us closer to an answer- something to be served up as proof that this will never happen again.
Gun laws, no gun laws- those lives are lost. The final products of twenty tiny souls who would have become farmers, factory workers, engineers or who knows what else. This is a time to rally, but for what cause? No guns? Then only the innocent citizens are left unprotected, more guns? Is that the kind of society we want?
Why was a young adult who was described as "strange" and possibly "mentally disturbed"ever allowed to learn to use a handgun? Who's place should it have been to step in? There are so many questions. There is an overwhelming part of me that wishes the shooter had survived, not because I think that anything about that would be fair and humane but because I, like the rest of the Country want answers.
The more I think about it, the more angry I am. After Columbine we began looking into not only Gun control but also the effects of bullying in schools. Though it was a massacre, as someone who has been bullied, it was almost a challenge not to empathize with the shooters. What on earth could a six year old do to provoke a twenty year old man? How can anyone look into the pleading face of a child and pull the trigger, over and over again?
There is so much pain here, so many questions, and so many families who will forever be torn apart by what has happened. There is no easy answer, no subtle bright side, and certainly no way to console a wounded nation, especially without the promise that this could not happen again.
