This is enough. Not that it wasn't enough with Columbine, Virginia Tech, the day last week when my niece texted me that she was in lockdown on her school's campus, not that it isn't enough any time any killer points a gun in a child's face, but this, folks, is it, and we cannot rely on the Fiscal Cliff People, the politicians who we've been begging to protect our children from murder.
Somehow this shooting feels heavier than all of the other school shootings, or maybe it is the culmination of all of the school shootings, but it looms large, bigger than the murder of JFK, MLK, it hurts more than the loss of the space shuttle Challenger, the Columbia, because it is enough. We have to stop this and I think that must be done at a community level because we can no longer wait for the politicians to get their shit together.
If you don't get your back up today, well then you're probably a boneless chicken.
Erma Bombeck wrote a column called, "The First Day of School," on September 3, 1981, which she said could also be titled, "Confessions of a child entering school for the first time who according to the adults has "nothing to worry about." Bombeck narrates the child's fears through a child's voice--Donald--where he says, "I'm just a little kid, but maybe I'm smarter than I think I am. At least I know better than to tell a five-year-old kid with a loose tooth who has never been out of the yard by himself before that he has "nothing to worry about."" What would Erma Bombeck write today? What do we now tell our children before we send them off to school?
We are going to have to solve this one ourselves, each community, with our time and our presence and our prayers. Communities all over the United States must come together to protect their--OUR-- children. Maybe we need to establish a neighborhood watch-style volunteer security system for each of our community's schools.
And for our children's sake, and especially for Newtown's children, let's get rid of the automatic rifles.
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