As a nation, we have
mourned together this week after the shooting in Newtown, CT where 20 young
students and 6 adults lost their lives. I’m sure I am no different than anyone
who has read all the various posts on Facebook. Many have been an outpouring of
support and comfort for those left behind to grieve but others are seeking to
place the blame on something, in an effort to find some measure of
understanding and make sense of this senseless tragedy.
I don’t think we can ever
truly make sense of tragedies such as this, and it’s much too soon to really
know the reasons why this fairly young boy himself walked into Sandy Hook Elementary
that morning and took the lives of all those innocent people.
I would think every school
shooter, or perpetrator of similar type of violence, is probably motivated by
and for different reasons. I seem to be reading a few main discussions,
however, as causes and/or ways to prevent such violence from happening again,
such as gun control, media and video game restrictions and increased school
protection. Who knows if gun control would have prevented the tragedy on that
terrible day? Maybe he would have gotten a gun anyway. Or maybe he would have
made a different type of weapon even without a gun. And whether research shows
negative consequences to children in general or not, do we really know if media
or video games impacted this particular child in a negative way prior to that
terrible morning? I have yet to hear if he ever played a video game in his
life. And locking schools apparently isn’t an effective security measure as
this school’s doors were locked 20 minutes prior to him entering the school on
that morning.
Again, I know it’s hard to
make sense of something so senseless and people are just trying to understand
something that is so illogical. But what I haven’t read and what does make
sense is knowing and understanding that despite the fact that this young man,
the shooter, did something so unimaginable, so heinous, so evil, that he himself
must have been suffering from something unimaginable to walk into a school and
take the lives of so many innocent people – especially 20 children. As a
society, until we focus on that issue, that suffering, and that area of
prevention, we will never be truly focusing on the prevention of school and
community violence and these kinds of events are likely to keep happening.
The task force report
presented to the Attorney General this week reported on the need for children to
grow up in homes with safe, stable, nurturing relationships, without exposure
to trauma, domestic violence, mental illness, substance abuse, etc. If we have
any hope that children will grow up and not become young adults that commit
these types of heinous, senseless acts, it is incumbent upon each of us as
adults, as parents, as citizens to be a part of the village that raises
children within these safe, stable, nurturing relationships. For more
information visit www.SpeakUpBeSafeFlorida.com.
Our thoughts and prayers
are with the families and loved ones of all the victims of this and all
tragedies of school and community violence. We long for the day when there are
no more innocent victims and no more perpetrators who have suffered from
something devastating enough in their past to somehow feel that this was an
answer to end their own pain.
For anyone suffering, there
is help. For anyone interested in prevention, there is information available.
The National Child
Traumatic Stress Network is the best place to start and they have compiled many
of their resources into one location in response to the recent shooting. http://www.nctsn.org/trauma-types/terrorism.
The Centers for Disease
Control/Injury Center on Violence Prevention has many resources available on
this topic. Please visit their website and learn more about preventing youth
violence, school violence and more. Here
are some links:
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