Yesterday, the world witnessed yet another senseless act of violence in the mass shooting carried out at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. I first began to see the news on the event while I was working at the public middle school where I am employed, and when I came home later yesterday evening, I found myself unable to watch the details unfold on the nightly news. It wasn't only that I didn't want my own young son to hear the words "children dead" or "teachers killed" spoken repeatedly on the broadcast—although that was certainly a factor—I just could watch the video clips being shown over and over with both moving and still images of children running away from their school, crying and terrified, or parents being tearfully reunited with surviving children or being comforted upon discovery that their children had not been spared. It is terrible. It is heartbreaking. It is horrific. And I cannot begin to imagine the devastation of that community.
Unfortunately, these types of incidents continue. I don't know what the solution is. Is it more gun control? More investment in identifying and treating mentally unstable people? Arming school faculties? More security at schools? More religion? Less press coverage? All of these have been bandied about on the news after each terrible act of violence carried out against innocent people over the last several decades. But to tell the truth, I don't know, and I don't profess to have the answers. I don't think that I can find a perfect solution for senselessness.
