The same thing is on every school age parent's mind this week.
Are my children safe at school?
A terrible thing happened and babies are gone.
My daughter came home from school Friday and wept for the parents who, in her mind, have Christmas trees and presents but no children to share them with.
The horror of the situation comes to me in waves.
Yesterday Ellie told me she and her friend planned where they would go and how they would get away from a shooter in their school. That is my 11 year old. The same girl who was terrified of rain after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans.
My heart is so sad for those families who lost a 6 year old child and for those children who will never be able to feel safe in their school ever again. The eagerness you have for learning in first grade is gone forever for them.
But I am angry as well. Angry that my daughter, a thousand miles away from this incident has a plan of escape in case a shooter comes to her school. I am mad that instead of mourning these 26 people who lost their lives in a senseless act, we are remembering other senseless acts and comparing and contrasting the links. Also, I am so angry that once again we are held hostage by two lobbies group that have bullied us into allowing high powered automatic weapons to fall in to the hands of mentally ill people legally.
I am grateful to live in a country that has access to medical care and freedom to bear arms. I don't think we have made good choices on either front. We don't need assault weapons to protect our homes or hunt. We don't need to medicate every feeling or expression out of our children.
SSRIs and legally bought assault weapons make a bad combination.
Just ask the kids at Sandy Hook.
I am not against guns. I am against owning assault weapons when we profess to be a peaceful country that just wants to protect our homes and hunt for food.
I am against medicating children, especially when the side effects are unknown and the known ones cause people to kill random strangers.
I am fortunate that my children have come home every day safe.
I plan on calling on my representative and my community to make sure that they stay that way.
I call on all our lawmakers to look around, find their conscience and say no to the drug and the gun lobbies and say yes to us.
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