One More Question From Newtown
Tonight on television are images from Newtown, Connecticut, where a gunman killed 26 people at an elementary school before killing himself. Most of the murdered are children. They are the unusually usual images. Police officers with leashed dogs. Parents running. Aerial shots of a school surrounded by police tape. The brush is being cleared down the path of familiar questions. Why did this happen? How did it happen? How did the killer get his hands on the guns? Who are the victims? Who are the heroes? Were there warning signs? What will be the damage to the little people who survived? Was the school locked? Is this our reality? Is this due to lack of empathy or a brain disorder? Can these disasters be prevented? What does the Second Amendment say? Will there be copycat crimes? And on and on into tangled arguments that admit of different perspectives. And our hearts are broken. And we are tired. And there are no words. But there have to be words, or else it's the grammar of t...