Feeling your pain

[pere]

For any of its worth, just wanted to say that I'm saddened by the horrible news from Newtown, Connecticut. Keep strong. I do hope no OSAer has been directly impacted.

These lyrics now feel sadly poignant:
It's not the monsters under your bed
It is the Man next door
That makes you fear, makes you cry,
Makes you cry for the child

 

[C.]

Kiitos, Pere. I have hesitated posting about this here, so I'm glad someone else did.

So far, no one I know from the OSA has been directly affected by this, but an acquaintance online said that she lives 20 minutes away from where the shooting happened. Scary.

And the shootings in Oregon last week, that was just 3 miles from Melusina's house, and while she was not hurt, she said it was a mall she goes to often. Really brings stuff like that back home when you realize that these can be people you care about, and not just random people on the news.

What has really disgusted me about this whole thing is that people use this as an excuse to get started on the gun debate again. I'm sorry, but no matter what side of the gun issue you're on, I think at this time one should drop their selfish agendas and focus on comforting the bereaved families. We have plenty of time to bring up the debate about guns, as it isn't going away anytime soon. But for now, these parents are too busy mourning their losses to worry about taking anyone's guns away.

 

[kathleenkat]

Very sad, especially after the shooting in Portland last week, and the shooting at the Canadian border in Blaine last month. I also think of this summer's Colorado shooting. What is going on these days?

It also disturbs me how highly-publicized this shooting is. The victims were mostly children, don't they deserve privacy? People posting their pictures all over Facebook, kind of makes me ill. And be honest, did anyone even hear Canadian border shooting last month? It seems to me that nobody south of Mount Vernon, WA knows what I'm talking about. I hate the media; it's like they are picking and choosing their favorite shooting to advertise on TV.

 

[C.]

I was just going to say, I didn't remember hearing about any shooting in Canada, but then I do recall some of our local right-wing gun nuts on the radio around here mentioning something that happened in Canada and, "see? They use guns more than we do and have violent shootings too!" So the news obviously got around, just not to the right places.

 

[Stingray11214]

Intromental's Milton Mendonca (AngraRULES on PPUSA Forum) lived ten minutes away from the school, and knew of some of the people who lost kids. If you have children of your own, hug them a bit more tightly than normal.

Our hearts go out to those families in this tragic of times.

 

[C.]

Please send him our condolences on our behalf, Ray.

Even if you don't have children, if you know any at all, give them hugs and let them know they are loved.

 

[kathleenkat]

I was just going to say, I didn't remember hearing about any shooting in Canada, but then I do recall some of our local right-wing gun nuts on the radio around here mentioning something that happened in Canada and, "see? They use guns more than we do and have violent shootings too!" So the news obviously got around, just not to the right places.

It got around, but not accurately. It was an American man (Washington plates), who drove into Canada, purchased a gun, and as he was re-entering America, he shot a Canadian border patrol woman in the chest, then shot and killed himself. The border was closed for 2 days. The woman was airlifted to a hospital in Bellingham, WA, and was in critical care last I heard. Of course, nothing was reported on the incident after the initial "by the way, this is why there is traffic" report. I have no idea if she survived or not.

 

[C.]

Sigh...another school shooting today; this time just a few towns over from where I live. Thankfully no one was killed and the teacher that was shot managed to convince the kid to turn himself in to the authorities.

 

[Taimi]

This is going to be a brutal year

 

[C.]

Thing is, the county where I live in California brags about being a "red state within a blue state", so they're very pro-gun and it's almost sickening the way the local media has done everything to dance around the issue at hand. I mean, it totally blows their theory out of the water in regards to Newtown that "every teacher should carry a gun". This one managed to get the shooter to surrender without any form of violence or weaponry. The irony of this: the school had an on-duty cop patrolling, but he couldn't make it to work that day due to snow on the mountain pass between here and L.A. The same mountain pass that keeps me from seeing more kick-ass concerts than I normally do.