Dear Principal, Children, Other Victims of Violence in Newtown, Connecticut:
Saying I'm sorry seems so little to say in the death you experienced earlier today.
It seems that your lives were so full and lively with an eagerness to excell and study well.
When Americans are attached to nearly 300 million guns, some conclude that it's useless to try to turn the tide with gun control.
In fact, this month's, The Atlantic, published a piece by Jefrey Goldberg, "The Case for More Guns (And More Gun Control)."
See what I mean?
As you were silenced, I prayed for your peace, and, that of your families and friends who grieve your deaths.
I am sorry that I have not stood up more assertively to try to help close the loop with the assault-weapons ban that expired in 2004 and was not renewed.
There are some who think that more guns will help us thwart off gun carriers who explode with rage, for example, as the 20-year-old, seems to have done on the taking of your precious lives.
Each week in the Thumb of Michigan's heart, there is a city that hosts a market on Mondays. My brother, Bob, said that many guns are sold there without any ordinances for registration or clearance to check with buyers are not mentally ill.
Even some police chiefs I know in the Detroit area told me that some countries that allow citizens to carry guns have less crime.
So, if I had a gun and was a teacher in your schoool, and, I used the gun on the killer, that would help solve our solution to gun violence in America?
I don't know.
What I do know, however, is that when people are asked to enter a local and national conversation about limiting assault weapons, few attend meetings.
In your memory, however, dear sisters and brothers, (not that it will change the horror and bring you back to life), citizens, clergy, and others will be meeting Wednesday, December 26, 2012 at 12:45 pm for about an hour or more in the Saint Clair Shores Public Library at 22500 Eleven Mile Road at Jefferson, to re-ignite the conversation.
I know it's too late.
Yet, I hold out hope to help, to not let your lifes go in vain.
Even a poet, chimed in centuries ago, saying, "So late, ever so late. . .
It is late. Is it too late?
Is there turning back the tide of the escalating numbers of guns, and, especially assault weapons?
Like others, I doubt it.
We will have to learn to live with guns in this nation. How strange that we cannot learn to live with each other without violence. People will need to be trained to respect guns. Similar to young people, among others, being taught to respect sexuality.
I am so sorry about what has happened to you today.
I am even more sorry that I doubt that anything will change. We just way for the next rampage, and, move on days later without a conversation about imagining ways out of this dilema.
The next outrage of gun violence will bring about the usual repsonses.
Turning the newspaper's page, yawning, commenting, or . . .
Even dubbing it as "normal" will be the battle cry of some.
Normal as blowing one's nose. That's how deeply embedded is violence in this land that I love.
Eternal rest grant unto you, and, let perpetual light shine upon you all.
What Jesus was to have said seems so fitting in our culture whre guns are so present.
Those who live by the sword will die by the sword. I don't mean you personally, but a nation that lives by violence.
Will we?
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