Knowing That No Sense Can Be Made Of The Newtown Tragedy

Here’s what happens when I get upset: I shut down. My senses go ‘la la la la’ and feelings float by, like I’m watching clouds on a gray day. Oh look, there’s one that looks like anger. Oh look, there’s one that looks like fear. That’s how I feel right now in the wake of the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary. I cannot focus long enough to write a cogent post. The best I can do is grab at those feelings and thoughts as they waft by and lay them out here.

  • I remember being in first grade. I remember being in first grade at Christmas time. Our elementary school was putting on a play, and I was in it. I was part of the toy train, made of cartons painted to look like railroad cars. I stood in my box and held it up tight around me with sweaty hands. When the play was over, my hands were covered with red poster paint that had seeped off the box. I cannot imagine, literally cannot. Imagine. What the terror must have been for all those kids at Sandy Hook, the ones who died and the ones who didn’t.
  • I remember the anticipation of Christmas when the kids in my family were young. My anticipation, that is, of their joy at seeing that Santa had brought them exactly what they wanted. And I cannot imagine, literally cannot, what it would feel like to have those presents sit forever on the closet shelf. Jessica Rekos was getting cowboy boots for Christmas. What’s going to happen to those boots now?
  • Here’s a list of everyone who died in Newtown on Friday, not just names but little memories that make them forever real to me. 
  • Yes, we need to do something about gun control. But the guns Adam Lanza used were legally bought and owned. Still, why are weapons of war–the very guns our military uses–thought appropriate vehicles of ‘sport shooting’? What is this thing called sport shooting anyway?
  • Yes, we need to do something about our attitude toward mental health. While it’s true that most mentally ill people don’t commit mass murder, it is also true that most mass murderers are mentally ill. So, I have to question why the mother of a teenager who had mental illness issues of any sort would allow him access to her sport shooting weapons, the ones that are actually weapons of war.
  • And yes, most of all, I think we need to do something about our comfort with attacking, even verbally, those whose opinion opposes our own. The lack of civility which marked the last election has been growing to the point that seemingly normal people think little of ‘going off’ on those who question them in any way. I had a very ugly incident last spring where a couple of Little League fathers took out after me when I said I thought their kids’ playing frisbee on a sidewalk outside some stores was not a good idea. They called me every name in the book and the fact that they felt comfortable doing this in front of their children is telling. The fathers were verbally abusive; the sons may take the next step.
  • Go read my friend Kim Tracy Prince’s post on Sandy Hook. She’s much more focused than I am and she links to other bloggers who are as well, including a number of our Gen Fab Facebook group.

This whole tragedy in Connecticut feels enormous to me. It feels, in fact, like 9/11. A day of infamy, forever etched into our national consciousness. Please–let’s not move on to the next thing. Please–let’s remember the children and adults who died in Newtown, CT and make our memorial to them that we change the way we do things. There is, I know, no way of preventing violence, but can we at least lessen our acceptance of it?

Edited to add: I’m listing here the other bloggers from the FB group GenFab who wrote on this topic:

Photo credit: Newtown Bee

8 thoughts on “Knowing That No Sense Can Be Made Of The Newtown Tragedy”

  1. I have a gun but I don’t shoot it. (An old boyfriend gave it to me after my condo was broken into.) Yet I believe in the right to own it, and a friend says her husband owns that same gun used at Sandy Hook to shoot feral hogs at their ranch. I still don’t understand the need for such powerful weapons, but my husband pointed out it wouldn’t have taken more than my little gun to kill those babies. So yes, the mental illness issue. I worked in an elementary school a couple of weeks ago where a kindergartner, the son of a teacher, got in trouble for punching another student. As I walked him to the office, I swear I heard him say something about a knife his daddy owned and cutting the head off of something. He was angry, so I’m pretty sure what his intent was, and it gave me chills. Most of the time this child is all hugs. What’s the answer? Hell if I know.

  2. i’m sure i am in the minority but there has to be more accountability. the death penalty needs to be restored and publicly done. then there will be a percentage who will think before they do. maybe not someone who kills his mother but maybe others like the guy in aurora colorado and too many others. do-gooders who feel that two wrongs don’t make a right just perpetuate the continuity of wrongs.

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  4. We don’t know that she did allow her son access to her weapons. I am sure it never crossed her mind that they would ever be used against her; much less anyone else. Why would she have a “weapon of war” as a sports shooter? My guess is release. It’s been stated that she kept her personal life private. Being a single parent is hard enough. Add an emotionally unstable child to the mix and the load must be unbearable at times. There is great release in destruction. While she would probably never dream of harming her son, or any individual – sometimes being able to take your frustrations out on something inanimate is great comfort. When my day has been particularly stressful, I play video games after my son goes to bed. It is my destructive release. I can only guess that instead of shooting pixels though – targets were hers,

    1. Kathy,
      We know she knew her son’s mental instability was increasing. She knew he was burning himself with lighters, another form of “cutting” that is also a release of pain and emotion. We know she did not, even knowing those things, lock her guns away. Perhaps the shame of having a mentally ill son pushed her to hide the truth from herself and the authorities–and that is where our attitudes toward mental illness must change too.

      Even more, however, you make my point about needing a change in how we deal with our emotions. There are other ways of dealing with stress than violence, real or virtual. Until sane people such as yourself don’t seek solace via violence, I fear we are doomed for repetitions of the shootings that have become so commonplace in America.

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  7. You’ve expressed a lot of what has been floating around in my head, too. Yes, let’s not move on to the next thing. The way to a safer society is not to arm everyone and anyone with high capacity guns.

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