The Aftermath

I imagine that schools across the US are no different to schools on this side of the pond, where it is necessary to seek permission to enter the premises once the school day has started.

The principal had buzzed Mr. Lanza in because she recognized him as the son of a colleague. Adam Lanza, a 20-year-old man wearing combat gear and armed with semiautomatic pistols and a semiautomatic rifle was allowed to walk into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., USA. A school, where he was known.

He had first killed his mother with ONE OF HER OWN GUNS. He then went on the rampage, causing carnage to 20 children and 6 adults, ranging in age from 6 to 56. The children Were All Shot Multiple Times.

These weapons are not like mobile phones that sit in a pocket without being noticed. How can you conceal a rifle and a couple of pistols?

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has five pages of regulations about ladders, while federal authorities shrug at serious curbs on firearms. Ladders kill around 300 Americans a year, and guns 30,000.

It is more difficult to adopt a pet than it is to buy a gun in the US.

I read this comment on Facebook last night and thought it summed up the situation perfectly:

“One failed incident with no fatalities and 11 years later we still take our shoes off at the airport. Kids killed again and again by assault weapons and nothing changes. Infuriating, devastating and incomprehensible…”!

I think the modern presidential habit of ending all major addresses with the phrase “And God bless the United States of America” … should be changed for the moment to God HELP The United States of America!

God help all those shattered families.

12 thoughts on “The Aftermath

  1. Grannymar Post author

    I forgot to mention the number of computer games that are about aiming, shooting or killing ones opponent. Is that the only thing that interests young people these days?

  2. Mike

    Updated information is that the gunman forced his way into the school, the principal died running toward him to try to stop him and that his mother was not a teacher at the school, but may have been a volunteer there at some point.

    I would like to never mention or write the gunman’s name and only refer to him in connection to his evil crime. Society should turn it’s back on perpetrators of horrific crimes and consign their names to wretched anonymity.

  3. Nick

    Guns kill 30,000 a year? That’s a truly shocking figure. So yes, why are airport security and health and safety rules so strict while any US citizen can own as many guns as they like and teach their mentally disturbed son to shoot?

  4. kenju

    You are so right and I have also been disturbed by the viciousness of video games and their subject matter.

    I don’t know why you cannot comment on my post. I recently changed my settings so that people couldn’t post as “anonymous”, but I doubt that has anything to do with it. Please try again.

  5. Rummuser

    I share your anguish and frustration. Perhaps this time around, unlike the past school incidents, the public outcry in the USA will drive the country to more sensible gun laws. One can hope.

  6. Dianne

    Actually, the latest rerports suggest Ms Lanza had no connection to the school, and Mr Lanza burst into the school via violence.

    Mental illness is a terrible thing I think. Dianne

  7. wisewebwoman

    He was an untreated autistic. Autistics are often jailed in the states due to the lack of health care. He was sick. His access to guns was another story. His mother taught him how to shoot.

    It is so unbelievably devastating I have difficulty even imagining it in another country.

    Apart from the US drones that kill countless children “collateral damage” every year.

    The world needs healing for children everywhere.


  8. Grannymar Post author

    Thank you everyone for your comments.

    It would appear that there are two completely different issues here.

    1.) Gun control laws, or lack of them.
    2.) Mental illness.

    Mixing the two will not solve either, it only smudges the edges and allows each side to blame the other.

    Coming from Northern Ireland where we again have unrest on our streets, roads blocked, lives being threatened, cars and buildings burned, I feel I am in a position to speak up. I am old enough to know that no country is perfect, and may never be, but removing guns across the board will go some way to improving life.

    A child in Afghanistan, Sudan, Iraq, India, South Africa, Ireland, US or any other part of the world, is no less precious than yours or mine and we need to remember that. We teach our children not to put their hands in the fire or on the cooker so they will not get burned. We tell them to be careful with sharp edges like knives, to be careful with using electric mowers, hedge cutters, and DIY tools. Yet some people want them to have a free hand with guns????

    I am only one small voice, But my views are as valid as those of everyone else.

    You know, if nobody makes the first move to rid the place of guns, there will be no future generation left to worry about the effects of Global warming. Maybe that is all part of the plan!!

  9. The Old Fossil

    As you know, I have been quite busy with care for those about me lately. so am tardy responding here and writing on this at my own blog. I come down on the same side of this issue as do you, GM, for you know that my family has experienced gun violence up close and indeed had to hide in a secret location for three days. It is not an easy thing to explain to your son who is five that his biological father has killed his grandmother with a gun.

    But, I am making an effort to do something else. I am trying to listen to those fighting gun control, because I want to hear their views, their reasoning and, most importantly, their feelings. I want to see how they can possibly reconcile it with the Christian affiliation that so many of them hold.

    I have found that the issue makes them angry almost immediately, but I think the deeper feeling below that is an almost continuous fear of the world and a view that it cannot change. The feeling of so many seems to be that the only thing that matters is superior firepower.

    I have tears for these children, their families, their community and my nation. Our problem is only in part guns, for Canada has many guns and few killings. Our problem is us and we need to find a way to address and have a good dialogue about it it so we can find our way back to peace.

  10. Grannymar Post author

    Fossie – You have a problem with guns, while we have idiots trying to bring NI to a standstill all because of the non flying of a flag! Maybe it would be good if the Mayans were right!


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