It's not over. The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown Ct. occurred on December 14, 2012, in Newtown, Connecticut, when 20-year-old Adam Lanza fatally shot 20 children and 6 adult staff members.
While Newtown grabbed the nation's attention, school shootings remain common across the United States. Some 95 incidents, including fatal and nonfatal assaults, suicides and unintentional shootings have taken place across 33 states since Newtown, according to Everytown for Gun Safety, a group created by the merger of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, founded by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, a group founded after the attack.
Little has changed in the way of gun laws (licensing, registration, limitations on magazine size) or expanded access to mental health services.
EFFECTIVE, REASONABLE REFORM.......
For Noah, his schoolmates, his teachers, the families and us
Noah Pozner was a six-year-old boy who was shot eleven times in the face. Veronique Pozner, his mom, made the difficult choice to allow and open casket where Noah's body could be viewed. A cloth covered the face for those who did not want to look. Why did she do this? She said it was because she owed it to him.
DON'T WE OWE IT TO HIM AS WELL. WE NEED TO LOOK NOAH IN THE FACE.
Veronique described asking Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy to view Noah's open casket — explaining, heartbreakingly, how she hoped that if the time ever came to FIGHT FOR legislation on the issues that led to her son's death, Gov. Malloy would be able to place a face and a person with the decision. She said:
"I needed it to have a face for him … If there is ever a piece of legislation that comes across his desk, I needed it to be real for him.....We all saw how beautiful he was. He had thick, shiny hair, beautiful long eyelashes that rested on his cheeks. He looked like he was sleeping. But the reality of it was under the cloth he had covering his mouth there was no mouth left. His jaw was blown away. I just want people to know the ugliness of it so we don't talk about it abstractly, like these little angels just went to heaven. No. They were butchered. They were brutalized. And that is what haunts me at night. I owed it to him as his mother, the good, the bad, the ugly … It is not up to me to say I am only going to look at you and deal with you when you are alive, that I am going to block out the reality of what you look like when you are dead. And as a little boy, you have to go in the ground. If I am going to shut my eyes to that I am not his mother. I had to bear it. I had to do it."
WHAT DO WE OWE NOAH AND HIS SCHOOLMATES AND HIS CLASSMATES?
A EULOGY WRITTEN DURING THE WEEK OF THE NEWTOWN FUNERALS
December, 2012
FAREWELL......moments of silence and of heartache.
I am a 62 year old man. I have family and we have been spared the level of pain which our brothers and sisters in Newtown have born these past several days.
I have seen my share of tragedy.
But, these days are among the most poignant. I am forced to face the daily violence throughout our land wrought by guns we do not need, by a culture that embraces violence as entertainment and praiseworthy, and by a society that has failed to care for those whose minds are imbalanced.
And I am a long time gun owner. I live in rural Missouri. I have a handgun, a rife and a shotgun. Nothing special. No high capacity magazines. I have owned them for years. I hunt. I shoot in competitions. And I am willing to defend my family, my friends, my community, my home. I believe in the 2nd Amendment, but I do not believe in what led to this mass murder.
Every time I read Noah Pozner's Eulogy I weep. Its spirit speaks to the murder of all killed that day.
This all hurts so much. How have we come to this? We know what must be done. But is there will enough, and courage enough to take on the power of money, the power of paranoia, the power of anger and hatred. There better be.
Noah Pozner's mom put it so well. "The sky is crying, and the flags are at half-mast. It is a sad, sad day. But it is also your day, Noah, my little man. I will miss your forceful and purposeful little steps stomping through our house. I will miss your perpetual smile, the twinkle in your dark blue eyes, framed by eyelashes that would be the envy of any lady in this room." These words are on my computer's startup screen along with an image of Noah and the other kids and adults. It is there as a marker reminding me to act. I am a political activist and I promise to devote significant effort to combating the evil done that day.
Farewell to Adam, his 19 schoolmates, the six educators whose lives were laid down for those they lovingly taught. And farewell to the man who was the instrument of so much sorrow and to the mother who bore him.
I hope we have not bid farewell to a nation where the children are safe to learn, to laugh, to love, to play, to hug, to trust.
Thank you Mrs. Pozner., firefighters, wearers of pink and of buttons.
Thank you Noah, kids, teachers. These really are your days.
