Time to change

While we grieve the loss of 20 children and the educators who cared for them in Newtown, let us resolve to change the culture that allows such massacres to happen.

When will we say enough is enough? Not after Columbine, or Blacksburg, Tucson, Aurora, Oak Creek or Portland. Maybe after Newtown.

Since two teenagers gunned down 13 people and injured 21 others at Columbine High School, at least 30 mass shootings have been perpetrated upon Americans. This year alone in our nation, 16 mass shootings have left 88 dead. This is to say nothing of the thousands across those years who died in single-shooting incidents.

This is madness. Maintaining the status quo is madness. The madness must end.

Gun control is a third rail of American politics. But gun policy must transcend politics. Some say it's a public-safety issue. That's true. But it's more. It's a human-decency issue. We need leaders with the courage to be decent, with the courage to demand our nation be decent and safe.

Second Amendment & wisdom

To some degree, gun control is a Second Amendment issue. The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states: "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

The Second Amendment guarantees the right to "keep and bear arms." The Second Amendment is a wise and time-honored document. It should not be abridged.

But the Second Amendment should be applied with wisdom. It's time to reinstitute the assaualt weapons ban. It's time to strengthen policy regulating the purchase of guns and ammunition. It's time to strictly regulate high-volume clips and magazines designed to enable shooters to fire dozens—or scores—of rounds as fast as they can squeeze a trigger.

I know; I know. When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns. But guns are not outlawed, and the good guys who want to carry guns never are present when the outlaws open fire. So, we need to do everything we can to keep guns out of the hands of outlaws.

Maybe the madness is getting so caught up in the hypothetical situations that we overlook the plain facts. These are blood-red facts. Facts with names and faces, most recently names and faces of 20 6- and 7-year-olds.

Complex issue; multiple reponses

President Obama noted this is a complex issue, which is true. He said it's a challenge that will not be resolved by one changed law, which also is true. We must confront this challenge on several fronts, including:

• Restoring the assault weapons ban. This means working with the gun lobby to find a reasonable consensus that honors the Second Amendment in both spirit and letter while also making the nation safe from mass-shooters.

• Increasing the nation's infrastructure to deal with mental illness. Of course, this is a struggle, because it means providing state and federal budget dollars, which essentially dried up for mental illness in the Reagan Administration.

• Curbing the availability of violent video games to teenagers. This is a First Amendment issue—free speech—but we also restrict access to other commodities, such as alcohol, to minors. Teens don't have the right to absorb violence-porn.

• Agreeing to mask the identities of mass-murderers. We can tell the stories of these events without revealing the names and faces of the killers. This would curtail copycat slayings and take the allure away from psychopaths who wish to become famous—or infamous—for any cause.

End the madness

Of course, many people of goodwill will disagree with some or all of these actions. That is their right. But expecting the shootings to stop without changing the status quo is madness. 

Madness is the sudden slaughter of innocents—Charlotte, Daniel, Olivia, Josephine, Ana, Dylan, Madeline, Catherine, Chase, Jesse, James, Grace, Emilie, Jack, Noah, Caroline, Jessica, Benjamin, Avielle and Allison. Madness is the massacre of the brave educators who perished with those children—Rachel, Dawn, Anne Marie, Lauren, Mary and Victoria.

The madness must end.