It’s probably too soon after the blood bath in my sweet
little New England home town to be writing about it intelligently. This post
won’t be pretty and it may not even make sense. But I have to get this out.
When I got accepted into grad school at Yale and my husband at
the time got a job at General Foods, we were living in California. We consulted
a map and realized we should live in Stamford if we wanted to live equidistant
from our respective jobs. Once we got to Connecticut, however, we realized that
there was no way we would be able to afford to live there. We moved the midpoint
farther north until the apex of the triangle reached the edge of Fairfield
County. Sandy Hook. What an odd name. I thought it was in New Jersey? We’d hear
that a lot over the years.
We were able to afford a house there – near a freeway and somewhat
eclectic as they say. It had a rugged wagon wheel chandelier in the cavernous
living room, a back yard too steep to do anything with, and a row of hemlock
trees (since chopped down) in front of the house – trees that made the
livingroom even darker. But it was ours, it was near Lake Zoar, and we loved it.
Both of our children were born during the seven years we lived there, in Danbury Hospital.
Coming from Los Angeles, we were charmed by living in New
England. There actually were white wooden churches, blazingly beautiful leaves
in the fall, maple syrup running in the late winter, and reminders and relics from
the Revolutionary War. Sandy Hook was its own entity, but part of Newtown. In
the center of Newtown's Main Street, there was a flag pole in the middle of the road. It was
considered a traffic hazard, but nobody ever removed that pole. A church nearby
had a weathervane that Revolutionary War soldiers had used as target practice.
The rooster still had holes in it.
As our children grew, we took them apple
picking and sledding. We baptized them both in the Newtown Methodist Church. I
joined playgroups with them and took Erik to nursery school two days a week.
They rode with me to school – an hour to New Haven each way – and had a
wonderful day care provider. They had birthday parties at a local farm. They
had an idyllic early childhood – as idyllic as it can be when your parents are
stressed from overwork and from straining to be good parents and from letting
their marriage suffer – and it was partly because the setting was so peaceful,
so self-evidently healthy.
Now all of a sudden, everybody is talking about Sandy Hook.
They’re talking about Newtown too (though many are spelling it “Newton”) and
about those children.
Those children. My son was one of those children 21 years
ago. I had one scary experience with Sandy Hook Elementary School. Erik’s first
day there, my first day waiting for him at a bus stop, he didn’t get off the
bus. I was a hysterical, sobbing wreck. I got in my car and drove much faster
than I should have been allowed to do in such a peaceful, safe town, screeched
to a halt in the school parking lot everyone has now seen on television or on
Youtube, and ran into the school. There was my precious little boy, sitting on a chair
in the hall. I can’t remember now if he had been crying or if he knew that I
would come get him. I’m not sure I remember what actually happened, but I think
he had gotten on the wrong bus. No matter – we were reunited, and he was safe.
Those children that were shot – did their parents throw
themselves in their cars, their hearts in their throats, sobbing, driving too
fast down those same roads? How could anyone survive panic like mine multiplied by thousands? Or what came after?
Why would someone come in and shoot them? Alright, he was
mentally ill. Like all these shooters are. Who knew that he was? Who let him
get his hands on weapons?
And why are there automatic and semi-automatic weapons for
sale to the general public anyway? I hear all this talk about how if you make guns illegal,
then only criminals will have them. But this is a red herring. It’s not the
having of guns that is the problem. It’s the having of guns that can kill 20
small children in the space of minutes. What do we need such weapons for?
We need to ban assault and semi-assault weapons. There is no
reason to have them. I can see having a hand gun. I sure feel like carrying one
now, once I’m properly instructed on how to use, clean and store it. But come
on. What are all these weapons catalogs for? What is this glorification of
shooting things in video games and in movies? Why is American society so
bloodthirsty?
The well-meaning posts about ‘if only people would love each
other’ and ‘if only they let God back in the schools’ – sorry. These don’t
address the issue of mental illness. It doesn’t matter how much love and how
much God. Mental illness makes people do irrational things. And there are plenty
of gun-toting Christians.
The US has to invest money in the treatment of mental
illness and it has to ban weapons that aren’t going to be used for hunting or
simple self defense. I think it would be in the NRA’s best interest to help
make this happen. With freedom comes responsibility. If you’re going to be free
to have weapons, then you’d better work to make sure that the weapons don’t get
into the hands of the mentally ill.
Sure, there are people who collect semi-automatic and
automatic weapons because they are interested in them and not because they plan
to kill a lot of people. Why can’t we just sell those and not sell ammunition?
In any event, there has to be a dialog about weapons in the
US – preferably one that stops calling names on both sides and works to solve
problems cooperatively. But that hasn’t been a strength of ours. I suspect that
in a week or so, people will have forgotten Sandy Hook again. There will be
hugging of beloved children, and there will be prayers of thanksgiving that
family members are safe. But somewhere there is another ticking time bomb,
making purchases, making a list and checking it twice.
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