On The Sandy Hook Massacre

Of course the kids heard about it, combined with some very wild misinterpretations of the event that they were taking as truth and it took sitting down with them and explaining what had happened.

Explaining this cowardly act to a 6 and a 9 year old was rather difficult, as they couldn't understand the concept of mental illness nor that the guy would or could shoot teachers and little kids for no reason.

Explaining it and answer their questions seemed to help their anxiousness about it and at least corrected some of the more crazy things they had heard about it.

I expect the school will do more lock down drills due and hopefully there's planning in the works for very fast police response in event of such an emergency should it present itself. I'm not sure if the lock-down drills are actually effective or simple talismans to ward off evil. It sounds like they may have helped save lives at Sandy Hook, but it is likely that other measures that were not taken would have been helpful as well.

As many people have already said, 94 million American gun owners didn't kill anyone, and many are using this act to sensationalize and push for more gun control.

It should be remembered that in the face of such a call, that the worst school massacre in the United States wasn't even caused with a firearm but by explosives, right here in Michigan by a madman back in 1927. Thankfully no one has duplicated or beat his shameful record and the media needs to treat these acts as those of pathetic idiots rather than acts of evil personified. Soem people like to be considered evil. I don't know anyone that enjoys and prides themselves on being considered an idiot.

As Say Uncle has pointed out, this fellows actions couldn't possibly be more illegal, but that certainly didn't prevent him. Only the presence of someone else with a gun stopped the attack, just as in other such shootings.. Considering he chose to a gun-free school zone makes quite a cruel mockery of the whole gun-free thing now doesn't it?

It's more than past time that we look at the results of deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill, especially as all of the most recent mass shootings have been committed by the mentally ill. Reading Clayton Cramer's blog would be a good place for people to clue in to this problem.

How badly government policy is falling the mentally ill and those who care for them and those who are victimized by them is made crystal clear by this amazing article: I am Adam Lanza’s Mother

The Sandy Hook School shooting is a horrific event, but using it to push to punish the sane for the act of the insane is hardly the answer.

There simply are no easy pat answers, nor explanations, nor solutions.