There's no article to be quoted or linked to here. This is just my own thoughts and feelings.

I am, personally, having a really really hard time wrapping my brain around the Sandy Hook shootings. I've been reading different theories about why it happened, how it happened....

and maybe this is emotional, maybe it's irrational...

but there are quite a few people on the net and off that i really just want to slap silly. I'm not being a goof--I'm dead serious. I've literally had to work really hard to unclench my fist a few times this week.

20 families babies were torn to bloody lifeless pieces by a mentally ill man with a shitty mom and access to rediculously overpowered weapons.

I haven't posted to any of the threads I've read here or in any other board, because I....I can't find the words to describe how inarguable I find the issues surrounding this case.

In my mind, there is no longer any case in any logical mind for private citizens owning and carrying handguns. If Sandy hook taught us nothing else, it taught us that guns in the hands of the wrong people are doomsday machines.

But what about us law abiding citizens? you might ask. Well...the boy that did this was a law abiding citizen. Until he wasn't. He had no history of violence. He had autism, sure. He probably needed much mental health care (and don't get me started about the irony of a country where gun ownership is a right but health care of any stripe is not). But even with the best mental health care available, angry people are going to slip through the cracks. People are going to have breaks with reality. Mental health is a very inexact science, still very much in it's infancy in a lot of ways. THEY COULD NOT HAVE STOPPED THIS.

Should his mom have locked up her guns? Sure. But how do you enforce that? Are we going to start random surprise inspections on private citizens in private homes to make sure their guns are secure??

My students are the same age as the ones that died last friday. In a lot of ways, it's my job to help raise them. I do it for a lot of reasons, both practical and philosophical.

But there are two big reasons that ARE NOT why I do it.

I do not raise children to be cannon fodder to keep Smith and Weston rich.

And I don't raise them to sacrifice to the altar of American belief in their frontier bravery and hutzpah.

Private citizens DO NOT NEED GUNS.

If any more babies die because of personally owned handguns, it's on ALL of the heads of those that support private gun ownership.

It's time to grow up and smell the blood. It's time for America's handgun philosophical masturbation to be OVER.

NO MORE BABIES NEED DIE THIS WAY.

Thanks for letting me rant. I needed to get this...OUT of me somehow.

A sensible rant, GAT.

gat, I think you put into words the way many of us feel.

My daughter sent a video to me today of my grandson's (5 yrs old) christmas program. I sat here and cried, thinking about those babies who did just that (I think) a day or so before being slaughtered.

Excellent rant, greeny ~ I can and do easily relate to your feelings ~ and I know that a lot of people can and do easily relate to your feelings, including a lot of people in a position to make changes ~

Sooz

It's an emotional rant based in common sense.

Hubby had a meeting on Monday night with an engineering consultant who also sold guns at gun shows. My first reaction was fury. I don't want to associate with gun salesmen. I think when I was hysterically ranting I called them babykillers.

I think we are going to have to accomplish the end game in baby steps. Truthfully, save anything better Bloomberg's plan looks pretty good for a starting point. Get those those semi/automatic weapons off the street and throw the illegal salesmen in jail for ever.

I'm mad, too, greeny.

The one thing I'm grateful for, in a selfish sense, is that I was laughing with and hugging our kidlets at WinterWonderland before I heard the reports ~ I honestly don't think I could have held myself together otherwise ~

Greeny, have you had school this week? ~ have your kidlets had any questions or expressed any fears?

Sooz

They haven't said anything to me, but they have been talking amongst themselves. My coop student overheard them. I haven't had any tears or fear, that I've seen. I've avoided bringing it up--I'm kind of waiting for them to. A letter went home to everyone on monday basically reiterating that we have plans for stranger invasion, that school is still a really safe to be, blah blah blah.

Great rant Green Apple.