Untitled

Part I:

Last Thursday night I was at my 9-year-old nephew's elementary school, doing what a person is supposed to do in December at an elementary school:  watching an adorable music pageant.  (This one was about a snowman and featured my nephew in a Significant Speaking Role as a TV anchor.  He was excellent, of course!)  My phone wouldn't let me e-mail the video file to my sisters, his other aunts, because it was too big, so there wasn't a lot of media coverage of this event.  I was at the school with my brother and his wife, her parents, my nephew who is 12, and my niece who is nearly seven.

Nearly seven.  Her birthday is next month.

Twelve hours later, everyone on earth with access to electronic media was hearing about another person at another school, and about twenty other children who were nearly seven as well.  These children will never celebrate their next birthdays, not next month, not next year.  And six women, educators who had probably planned to spend that Friday trying to keep holiday-frazzled kids focused on learning, instead gave their lives trying to protect their children.

There are not words to describe this tragedy further.

Part II:

I am not a gun person.

There were no guns in my home growing up.  My dad didn't hunt.  If any of my friends had guns in their homes, I didn't know about it.  I shot at a camping program a couple of times as an adult, and it was fun, but it's not like I had any urge to go buy a gun.

So I don't get the whole being passionate about guns thing, although I do get that lots of people are.  I pay enough attention to know that the Second Amendment has begun being interpreted by the Supreme Court to mean that certain types of gun restrictions are not Constitutional.  And I also understand that the existence of a law doesn't ensure strict compliance with that law.

(On a strictly practical level, however, I don't understand why anyone whose home is lived in or visited by children, or by adults with bad tempers and access to alcohol or other drugs, or anyone who hasn't completed SEAL firearms training and who is always home [i.e., they can prevent a criminal from breaking into their house and stealing the gun] - I don't get why anyone like that even WANTS a gun.  I've never understood how one balances keeping the gun safe [i.e., relatively inaccessible] with having it available when an intruder breaks in.)

But I respect that many passionate pro-gun people (some of whom are my friends) are very sincere and well-intentioned in their beliefs.

Same as me.

There has been a lot written and said in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook School shooting, some of it actually productive discussion.  The most interesting to me are the statements that are political - that is, people talking about the policy implications of this terrible crime:  the sense that this shouldn't have to happen again so maybe THIS TIME our country should do more than just talk, that perhaps President Obama and the Democratic leadership will take on a weakened-NRA and work with Republicans on policies (gun control, mental health, maybe others) that can reduce the likelihood that another community will have to face the same nightmare.  This conversation gives me more hope than I've had on the issue for a long time.

Gun control proponents have been narrowing their goals for years - I don't know that anyone in any sort of position of power talks about a handgun ban anymore, for instance - but now it seems that gun control opponents are beginning to see the danger in continuing to cling (yes, I said "cling") to an absolutist stance that the Second Amendment lets anyone own any weapon he or she could possibly dream up.

Rights aren't absolute.  Yelling "fire" in a crowded theater?  Not protected speech.  Apparently freedom of religion isn't absolute, either, since pastors in my faith (Unitarian Universalism) cannot perform legal marriage rites for same sex couples, despite the fact that we believe such marriages are the same as marrying opposite sex couples.  But that, as they say, is a topic for another day.  My point is that people can (and, in a democratic society, SHOULD) discuss what are reasonable limits on rights while still protecting the intent of our Founding Fathers.

So let's do that.

I hope people post thoughtful comments here.  And by "thoughtful" I mean written with the assumption that no one is in favor of policies that allow heavily armed crazy people to murder children and teachers in their school, regardless of one's position on gun control.  Personally, I believe that an assault weapons ban is absolutely a must and I hope that Congress works up the courage to pass such a law.  But I also believe that no good legislation can be passed until we can get past the shouting (either actual or metaphorical) and name-calling - and that begins with each of us.