Reacting to Newtown Connecticut Shooting

Well, I have been trying to figure out what I was going to say about this story, and I still can't come up with anything. Even more ironic, were the spin-off threats that hit several Newfoundland schools in the days afterwards.  The topic came up on CBC news this past week and one of my tweets was quoted.  It just totally blows my mind that this type of violence could happen in what is supposedly a safe and civilized society. It has been a rough month for violence, as we had an NFL football player shoot his wife then himself, and now this Connecticut situation where someone shot his parents dead, and several students and staff at an elementary school.  While I have no idea of the circumstances, I find it interesting that the main stream media has not caught on to the additional fact that this guy not only opened fire in a school, but he did kill his parents, apparently. It's bad enough to murder anyone, but from where I sit, the fact that he killed his parents, points to what may be the true cause and story here.

Bottom line, we need to find a balance between taking precautions necessary to ensure safety vs not being afraid to live our lives.  What I will speak out about, and what makes me sick, is that certain niche entities are trying to utilize this tragedy to score political brownie points - specifically, the gun rights vs gun control folks, and the religious right. To think that a prominent person (can't remember who now), stated that this should be blamed on the gay community??  Gimme a break!

Also, I don't want to get too deep into the gun control debate, as I have not done sufficient research into the matter. But I will state that this crime would have been less likely to have happened, should the perpetrator not had access to firearms. Sure, a gun alone can't kill someone. It takes a person to use the gun. But at the same time, I think society needs to take a really close look at gun accessibility - because far too often, we see stories in the news about crimes being committed by the use of guns.

I don't have all the answers. In fact, I probably have very few. But I wanted to blog about this and express my outrage and disbelief that this event happened in Connecticut, and that spin-off threats occurred here in Newfoundland.


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