How long O Lord, how long?

Kyrie Eleison.  Evil came to an elementary school today in Newtown, CT.  Preliminary news reports indicate that a shooter came to an elementary school, focusing most of his attention on a single Kindergarten classroom.  A Kindergarten classroom.  My mother is a Kindergarten teacher and a ton of my relatives and friends are teachers as well.  If this can happen in an elementary school, it can truly happen anywhere. And it needs to stop.  Right now.

Reports indicate that there are about 26 people who lost their lives, as well as it is reported the shooter's mother was a teacher at the school, and reports indicate that she was a Kindergarten teacher.

How long O Lord, how long?

How many more times does this have to happen before we really and seriously talk about gun control?  There is no argument that can justify the fact that someone who is crazy enough to shoot up an elementary school should be able to get within 100 miles of a gun.  The gun rights lobby opposes all efforts to regulate gun usage, saying, "people kill people, guns don't kill people." Crazy people who have no business getting their hands on guns use guns to kill people.  No, you cannot legislate crazy, but you can make it harder to get guns.

This is the second shooting this week.  Sunday there was a shooting in a mall in Portland, OR where two people were killed while Christmas shopping.  It is time to have this conversation.  Those of us who live in communities that have been ripped apart by gun violence, and who know people whose lives have been changed forever by these public acts of terror, know that it is too late for this to be a conversation.  We need action.  I have yet to set foot in a movie theater since the shooting this summer.  And now, thousands and thousands of children are going to be afraid to go to school.  It is not okay.  Something needs to give and I think it is access to guns.  This is the final straw.  Below is a portion of a friend's facebook status, who was in the Aurora movie theaters this summer during the shootings:

"None of you know what it's like to see the devastation of a crazy person with a gun. None of you know what it's like to be covered in the blood of a strangers body that's been ripped apart by bullets."

Kyrie Eleison.  Hug your families a little closer today.