When Evil Shadows Good

Like the rest of the world, I’ve been grieving for the loss of life in Newtown. Like the rest of the world, I’m sad, angry and frustrated beyond words. I have shed tears for the sweet children and heroic adults who were exterminated in a brief barrage of a semi-automatic weapon: a weapon that should never, ever be available to any citizen.

Seven year-old children and the teachers who nurtured them were obliterated. It doesn’t seem possible, this horrifying nightmare. It happened in Newtown. It could have happened anywhere.

The untold anguish of the parents, families and members of the Newtown community is impossible for me to fully know. If my sorrow is so deep, how excruciating is their pain? What gives them the courage to go on?  I think about them and their lives which have been irrevocably and horribly savaged. And what about children everywhere, even beyond Newtown, whose innocence is shattered and whose fears may not easily be quelled?

Glued to CNN, I am flabbergasted by the facts and statistics I have learned.

• There are more registered gun dealers than McDonald’s restaurants.
• After the Aurora shootings, gun sales in Colorado spiked over 40%.
• Americans tried to buy 200 millions guns just in November.
• Three deaths every hour occur from gun violence.
• It is easier to buy a gun than it is to vote, drink a beer or buy a cell-phone contract.

I mourned the tragedies at Columbine, Aurora, Virginia Tech, and others. I bemoaned our violent society, worried about copycat shootings in the aftermath, shared outrage with my family and friends. In the end, however, we resigned ourselves to the fact that nothing would change. The NRA was way too powerful and politicians were way too meek.

Like most of the rest of the world, I did little outside of talking about it. Yes, I hugged my children tighter. That made me feel better, but did nothing to address the larger issue of gun violence, which is something that affects us all.

This time, things are different.

Some are saying that the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School has turned the tide of public opinion. I vow that it has awakened something in me. No longer will I passively sit by and accept this impenetrable culture of gun worship. I no longer feel impotent and unnoticed.

With public outrage at its zenith, with strength in numbers, now is the time to make our voices heard. My fellow blogger, Sharon Hodor Greenthal, has provided ways you can help in this post.

I am making phone calls and writing letters to my legislators and imploring them to support new legislation on gun control. I will add my voice to the growing chorus of mothers, fathers and families who will not stand for this anymore.

When evil shadows good, it is our responsibility to make our world right again. It must happen now.

Will you please join me?

More reading on this topic from bloggers:

• Gun Control is a Parenting Issue – Lisa Belkin on the Huffington Post
• Ten Small Things I Can Do – Connie MacLeod
• Thoughts on Yet Another Senseless Tragedy – After the Kids Leave
• Hope for Humanity Rests With the Individual– The Furflies
• On Love, On Silence, On Speaking Our Minds – Daily Plate of Crazy
• Parents, it’s Up to Us to Stop Gun Violence -Yvonne Condes on MomsLA
• After Newtown – Holding Them Close  – SoCal Mom
• Searching for a Child – Searching for an Answer – Relocation the Blog
• Of Guns and Sleeping Elephants – After the Kids Leave
• Newtown Old News – Darryle Pollack
• Monday Morning After Connecticut – Momfaze
• Gun Control Would Not Have Prevented Sandy Hook – resoulin’ My Dancing Shoes
• Bullet Points or Me and a Gun – The 3 R’s Blog
• Countdown to the End of the World – Ronna Benjamin on Betterafter50.com
• A Call for Action – The Giggling Trucker’s Wife
• Solve for X – Ambling and Rambling
• What They Should Have  – The Boomer Rants
• Guns Do Kill People – Style Substance Soul
• Do Something – Write Mind Open Heart
• Why I Believe We Are Bigger Than Our Weapons – Donna Highfill
• Wordlessness, Action, and the Sandy Hook Tipping Point – The Midlife Second Wife
• A Broken Heart – The Kids are Grown, Now What?
• Knowing that No Sense Can Be Made of the Newtown Tragedy – Midlife Bloggers

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