What happened today in Connecticut is unspeakably horrible and tragic. Inevitably, it also will become a political question, a matter that demands public debate and new policy initiatives.
These kinds of preventable slaughters have become too frequent -- even one of them would have been too many, and the U.S. is a country now desperately waiting for some leader to emerge with the courage and will to take this problem on.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg was a lone voice on the issue of gun control recently; where is another person of courage?
When a sports commentator added his voice to the conversation, he was widely ridiculed, which says more about the state of denial many sports fans live in than it does about him.
If you are a parent or grandparent or aunt or uncle or even a friend of children, or even if you are none of the above but have a heart, you know how horrifying today was for all of us, and you felt the horror yourself.
I'm not sure that gun control is the entire answer here, but I do know that restricting access to weapons that have no other purpose but to slaughter other humans is the right thing to do.
We also need much better mental health intervention services. We need better community awareness of the signals that someone is in trouble in the types of ways that could lead them to do what was so tragically done today.
Rarely is an individual so isolated that literally no one is aware of his struggles, emotionally and mentally.
Remember that even the Unibomber was eventually identified by his brother, thanks to media circulation of his mad writings.
As I said, gun control is only one piece of what needs to be done, but for that we need a political leader willing to take on the NRA.
For that, it is time to look to our President. I'm sure his emotion today was sincere, that he was acting more as father than as Commander in Chief, as he wiped away tears.
But as President at this moment he is also Father in Chief. Step up, Mr. President, and take on the gun lobby. Now is the right moment. We need you.
p.s. If you agree with these sentiments, please forward them or your own to the White House.
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