Be Kind

With the horror at Newtown, it is difficult not to think what if?...

What if that was my child? my sister, my mother, my son?

How could this happen? How can those families bear this?

Since Columbine, I've noticed that there is less talk of evil since past mass shootings. We as a culture have grown so accustomed to this horror that we no longer label it something so far from what "good" people do, because, in fact, "good" people raised those young men, who became murderers.

What we see in these years is a series of disturbed and angry young men with access to weapons of efficient and devastating destruction. Who knows what was going through their minds? Maybe....maybe in those deranged minds, they might have even felt they were doing something good. We can not continue thinking of these tragedies in terms of morality.  Morality is irrelevant in a deranged mind.

We know that like the other mass murderers before him, Adam Lanza used semi-automatic weapons. These were obtained legally, by his mother, his first victim. Let's assume that she believed her son would not use her  cherished weapons upon herself or on an elementary school. It does not matter why she had them. From anecdotal reports, it seems that she just liked them, perhaps they made her feel powerful and strong. And, in America, that is her right.

So then, why did Adam Lanza go on his killing spree?

Of late, mass murderers have these qualities in common:
1. Young men, most likely mentally ill, who are
2. Angry and
3. Hopeless with
4. Access to semi-automatic weapons

The debate focuses on the last quality. What about the first three? How can we change it?

I have two young boys. I can no longer be complicit in creating a world where they may grow up to be victims or killers. Let's get gun policies together and let's make this a world where we give young men the help they need.

Please America, stop clinging to your weapons, pay attention, and be kind.