Now Murder Comes to Newton Conneticut

     This is becoming depressingly familiar. Since the Columbine shootings back in the late 90s this seems to be a part of American life. An unstable person goes off the rails. Many people are needlessly killed. For a few weeks we speculate about what might have happened-perhaps he was a "loner."

     Then we forget about it until the next one. Before this one it was Colorado and James Holmes who thought life was a comic strip and he was the Riddler. Now we have the latest where a young man of 20-there have been some contradictions in early composites of him-killed 27 young children and adults-that head count includes him.

     Adding even more unreal gist is that he killed his mother who taught at the school he did the shootings at. Initially it was claimed that he killed her in the classroom. Later reports said he killed her at home in the morning first. Initially it was supposed to be 24 year old Ryan Lanza, however it later turned out to be his younger brother Adam Lanza who he had not seen since 2010.

     For more see

     http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/12/sandy_hook_elementary_shooting.php?ref=fpa

    There will be many who say we need better gun control. It's tough after a tragedy because right or wrong gun control is a very divisive issue in American society. I agree with those who say we do. However, Jay Carney was not wrong to not want to get into details about this yesterday.

    http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2012/12/gun-control-advocates-criticize-carneys.html

    Of course, conservatives will argue otherwise. Mike Huckabee says it's because we ignore God in our society. I'm sure that's a sincere belief on his part. Still while yesterday was not the day to get specific perhaps, we do need to have that day as Jay Carney also said.

    Talk about how "guns don't kill people, people kill people" has become more than just hollow. We do need action. You can argue that the guns are just coincidental, that if you take away the guns bad people will find other ways. Maybe-but notice how all these tragedies have this common denominator of a gun? I'm sorry the shear number of these implicate guns to some extent. We must do some real gun control policy.

    "Rep. John Larson (D-CT), who chairs the House Democratic caucus, released a strongly worded statement on Saturday arguing that no action on gun control in the wake of a mass shooting spree in Newtown, Conn. was to be "complicit" in the attacks, the Hartford Courant reports:

“Friday was a day of mourning, but the time to act is now upon us,” Larson said in a strongly worded statement issued Saturday afternoon.
“To do nothing in the face of continuous assaults on our children is to be complicit in those assaults. There may not be a single cure-all for the violence in our nation, however we must start the process and begin the deeper and longer conversations that need to take place.
“Politics be damned. Of the 12 deadliest shootings in our nation’s history, half of them have happened in the last five years. And there is not a single person in America who doesn’t fear it will happen again. It’s time we recognize the danger and address it,” Larson said.
 

      http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/top-house-dem-to-do-nothing-on-guns

      His words cannot be improved on nor can Mayor Bloomberg's:

       "With all the carnage from gun violence in our country, it’s still almost impossible to believe that a mass shooting in a kindergarten class could happen. It has come to that. Not even kindergarteners learning their A,B,Cs are safe. We heard after Columbine that it was too soon to talk about gun laws. We heard it after Virginia Tech. After Tucson and Aurora and Oak Creek. And now we are hearing it again. For every day we wait, 34 more people are murdered with guns. Today, many of them were five-year olds. President Obama rightly sent his heartfelt condolences to the families in Newtown. But the country needs him to send a bill to Congress to fix this problem. Calling for ‘meaningful action’ is not enough. We need immediate action. We have heard all the rhetoric before. What we have not seen is leadership – not from the White House and not from Congress. That must end today. This is a national tragedy and it demands a national response. My deepest sympathies are with the families of all those affected, and my determination to stop this madness is stronger than ever.”

       http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/bloomberg-on-ct-shooting-calling-for-meaningful-action?ref=fpb

       When the Mayor's right he's' right and this time, he's really right.

        Finally, as in the James Holmes Batman killings this tragedy had some heroes again reminding us of the human triumphs as well as suffering.

       http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/nyregion/gunman-kills-20-children-at-school-in-connecticut-28-dead-in-all.html?_r=0