Shooting in Newtown, Connecticut Elementary School

Today I observed at least 25 news people and 5 or 6 news satellite trucks across the street from the towns only funeral home which is located on Main Street just north of the famous flagpole that Im sure that you have all seen by now.
They were taking videos of the mourners as they came and went to pay respects to 6 year old Jack Pinto. The line was long and people were standing outside in the cold December rain.
There was also a videographer inside the local deli that was near the funeral home. He was sticking the large shoulder mounted camera in everyones face as they walked in for lunch. Other reporters were outside of the deli trying to interview anyone who would stop and talk. These news people are truly bottom feeders. They are scum.

This may help you feel just a bit better:

Jennifer Quinn
Staff Reporter

Dear Newtown:

I must confess that I’m glad to be leaving you — though you’re probably even happier to see me, and other people like me, go. As the week goes on and Christmas gets closer, there will likely be fewer members of my profession driving around your town, down Main St., and through Sandy Hook.

You’ve been incredibly kind. And I would guess that not every one of us has deserved that. But I want you to know that I am very grateful for the patience you displayed when answering my questions, and will always admire the grace with which you handled the terrible events that took place in your pretty town.

I arrived here on Friday night — hours after a troubled man who carried a scary rifle burst into the elementary school and killed 26 of your neighbours, 20 of them children — and went straight to the Catholic church.

Hundreds of you were huddled on the lawn. Originally, I thought the service was over, and people were just waiting for friends or whatever, and were going to head home. Wrong. People were staying. And talking. To each other, to members of the clergy — and to reporters. Tons of reporters. We represented media outlets from around the world. Norway. Spain. Korea, too, I later found out. Canadians, obviously. And from all over the U.S.

And you talked to us. To me. About how you felt about your kids, and how you worried for your friends, and how you hoped your town would eventually be OK. No one was angry at the assailant, not at that point. People were just terribly sad. And even as you cried, and hugged, and sang, only one out of the many people I approached said he’d rather not talk — and he said that with a polite, sad smile. And then he said to me, “But thanks for asking.”

I think you wanted to tell your stories, and those of your community, and I believe you did that beautifully.

I’ve never lived in the United States, but I’ve spent a lot of time here. For a couple of years I travelled here almost weekly — I was covering professional sports for the Star — and then, when I moved overseas, I worked for an American news organization, with many American colleagues.

I love the U.S., and I love Americans, and I always felt like I knew and understood this place. But here, in Newtown, I was reminded of the differences between our two countries.

It’s not just your gun laws, though those are one obvious difference. Put it this way: If I had gone to Newmarket, Ont. — or New Westminster, B.C., or pretty much any other Canadian community — I think things would have been different.

This isn’t to say that Canadians aren’t just as thoughtful, or as welcoming. But I think we’re more reticent when it comes to talking to the press — and nowhere is that difference more obvious than when it comes to public officials.

Just look at the remarkable news briefing held by Dr. H. Wayne Carver, your state’s chief medical examiner, on Saturday afternoon. True, there is no prosecution in this case so he doesn’t have to be careful about what he says, but I don’t think there’s any way any Canadian official would get up and speak as frankly as he did.

He said how many times the victims he saw had been shot. He described what the bullets did to their flesh. He gave the kind of detail that sometimes we don’t even hear spoken in courtrooms. I was astonished.

And then, I have to confess, I was also taken aback Sunday afternoon when I heard a smart, pretty 21-year-old girl — who was setting up to take donations for the families in your town — make the “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” argument.

I’m not naive, but I was surprised when she and her two friends all said, sure, they know people with guns. I don’t think I know anyone with a gun (cops notwithstanding). Look around, one of them said to me, waving her arm. Newtown is surrounded by woods. People hunt. Of course they have guns.

Zoe told me her boyfriend’s mom and her best friend’s mom were in Sandy Hook Elementary when the shooting took place. So I thought she might now think that people don’t need weapons.

“Some people are saying this is about gun control,” she said. “I don’t believe that. This is about one sick person.

“I don’t forgive him,” she said. “I really don’t, at all.”

That was about the only anger I heard during the days I spent in your town. Mostly, people talked about love.

I haven’t cried yet. I’ve been close, but when you’re working, you just kind of keep on going. I’ve tried not to look too closely at the pictures of the little girls — they remind me too much of people who are important to me. And I grew up surrounded by amazing women who are teachers.

So I am glad to be leaving you. Because I get to go home and see those people. I’ll get to hug them on Christmas Eve, and I’ll get to laugh with my girlfriends, and sit at a favourite bar, and leave some of what I heard and saw in Newtown behind.

I won’t forget you, though. And when I stop and remember, that’s probably when I’ll cry.

Sincerely,

Jennifer
 
Thanks for posting that Bruce.

As a former member of the press corps for over 20 years, it is nice to see that journalism isn't the complete cess pool I thought it was when I left.
 
What a difference a few days can make. Until Friday morning, Discovery Channel's "American Guns" was generally regarded as a popular, not especially complicated show about the travails of a family of gun sellers. In the aftermath of the devastating murders at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the show's become a symbol of our culture's fraught but durable love affair with guns. After hundreds of Facebook users besieged the show's page, calling for its end, they got their wish. The network has cancelled the show.
 
Re: Shooting in Newtown, Conneticut Elementary School

Just when you think things can't possibly get any worse, something like this happens to up the ante.
Everyone is going though the shock and grief phase at the moment (as well they should be) and mere words written on a drum forum post cant even begin to express the heartbreak we all feel for those innocent kids, teachers and the other victims.
Can someone please tell me, exactly how many massacres does it take before a country realises it needs at least SOME form of gun control????

The worst school masssacre in U.S. history was 1927 in Bath, Michigan, 44 people were killed, 38 were children. The guy used explosives and blew up the school, no guns used there. The insane will always find a way to kill, no matter how many laws you have.

Look at Switerland, people walk around freely with rifles, men between the age of 20-30 are required to join the militia and are givin assault rifles to keep in there home, yet they don't have a high gun murder rate. It's not the guns, it's more to do with people with mental health issues getting there hands on guns or bombs.
 
Re: Shooting in Newtown, Conneticut Elementary School

Look at Switerland, people walk around freely with rifles, men between the age of 20-30 are required to join the militia and are givin assault rifles to keep in there home, yet they don't have a high gun murder rate. It's not the guns, it's more to do with people with mental health issues getting there hands on guns or bombs.

Yes, in Switzerland we have our assault rifles at home, with munitions as well, but a murder involving a military gun is extremely rare indeed.

When you join the army (not by choice, mind you) you will be given your gun, however, it is closely monitored, and if the army think there's a possibility that someone could be a danger to themselves or to others, the army either don't give a gun or take it back.

I had an automatic assault rifle in the wardrobe in my bedroom for 15 years, it's for a much longer period normally, but I had to give it back when I left the country to live abroad. I kept it in that wardrobe though, it only got out when I had military duties to do (which I hated anyway)

It's not the guns that are problem, I agree, but guns in the wrong hands are a disaster waiting to happen, you need to find a solution for the hands, not for the guns.Which bring us back to the point raised by Mary...
 
Re: Shooting in Newtown, Conneticut Elementary School

It's not the guns that are problem, I agree, but guns in the wrong hands are a disaster waiting to happen, you need to find a solution for the hands, not for the guns.Which bring us back to the point raised by Mary...

I agree with this and although I do believe in the right to bear arms, there are still many areas of improvement that can be made to the gun control laws we already have.

In addition to gun control reform and or improvement, this tragedy should also invoke the issues of improving awareness, security to vulnerable public places, crisis training, etc..

Larry touched on an interesting aspect to all of this. Our culture and history have a lot to do with this. The USA was born of rebellion and violence. Our country celebrates it in a way with film, TV and literature as entertainment. The media contributes to the incessant exposure to violence. We are becoming more and more desensitized to it even by our increased awareness of it.

In our modern world today, just our incredible access to information and current events offers up more possibilities that we could be putting more ideas into the heads of the truly insane people that would do these things.

Back in 1927, I'll bet that a very small percentage of the population would have heard about the school massacre in Bath, Michigan.

Even in a firearms abolitionists perfect world of zero firearms in anyone's hands (if they just didn't exist) crazy people will find a way to do crazy things. It doesn't mean we shouldn't try to improve our situation but accepting the fact that a "no weapons world" does not exist should prompt us to look more closely at the realistic things we can do.

I am always amazed at how almost all of the people that are so anti-gun don't really concern themselves at all with their personal security.

Except for those that are truly pacifists and would rather die than defend themselves violently, I think many of the no-gun crowd would probably prove to be hypocrites if this issue hit closer to home.

I remember when I used to live in DC, there was a Washington Post columnist that was very anti-gun. Carl Rowan was extremely outspoken about restricting the sale of hand guns.

A Wiki excerpt: Rowan gained public notoriety on June 14, 1988, when he shot an unarmed teenage trespasser, Neil Smith, who was on his property illegally. "The interloper was a near-naked teenager who had been skinny-dipping with friends in Rowan's pool, and the columnist's weapon was an unregistered, and thus very illegal, .22 caliber pistol." ..

.. Rowen was charged for firing a gun that he did not legally own. Rowan was arrested and tried. During the trial, he argued that he had the right to use whatever means necessary to protect himself and his family. He also said the pistol he used was exempt from the District's handgun prohibition law because it belonged to his older son, a former FBI agent. Critics charged hypocrisy, since Rowan was a strict gun control advocate. In a 1981 column, he advocated "a law that says anyone found in possession of a handgun except a legitimate officer of the law goes to jail—period." In 1985, he called for "A complete and universal federal ban on the sale, manufacture, importation and possession of handguns (except for authorized police and military personnel).[7]]</ref>-->[8] Private gun ownership had been illegal in the District of Columbia since 1976[9] and the facts of the case were the talk of the town for many days.

Rowan was tried but the jury was deadlocked; the judge declared a mistrial and he was never retried. In his autobiography, Rowan said he still favors gun control, but admits being vulnerable to a charge of hypocrisy.

I offer this story in hopes that we might spend the rest of this thread, for however long it lasts, in IMO, on the more important issues of improving school security, training and any other ways we can find to stop this kind of thing from happening in the future.

Ultimately, there is no complete solution to avoiding another tragedy. One day, we're going to read a story about a soccer mom that notices a perp in her kids school parking lot. When she sees him take out a weapon and approach the school, she runs him over with her mini-van averting a disaster.

In an unfortunate way, this will be some of the progress that we are looking for.

Sorry for the long rant. I keep thinking about those poor kids and I get so bothered by it all.
 
This. 1 Star rating.

what do you expect?????...it's the f-in internet!
good grief. just a lame attempt at trying to be better than everyone else.

welcome to the ego show

Everything here has been very civil and it's not like this thread is going to bring back the dead children. It's absolutely horrific..THAT is something we can all agree on.

Let's ban guns, then we'll ban knives and then we'll ban spoons and before long we will ban keys. Where are the men in this world? Why have they become a bad crop of little boys who don't know how to be respectful of others and most importantly how to treat women? Women no longer get married to a strong man..they basically marry a child to raise. The family dynamic and morality in this world is suffering the wrath of selfishness. Culture has changed and we're too busy looking at our smartphones to adapt and balance the loss of morality. We just keep breeding more selfishness. No body knows how to love and respect their neighbor anymore.
 
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Unfortunately those hands are connected, however loosely, to some brains that have a disconnect or are medicated to the point that the person has trouble defining reality. This lady in Conn. mentioned to her friends that her son was drifting further away lately and she had a tough time getting through to him. Why in the hell then did she have weapons that he could access. Today in the news a 6th grader brought a handgun to school because he said his parents told him to for protection. He had a gun and ammo. These parents if this is true, need to spend a little time behind bars.

And here is another consequence of the shooting like other shootings, the conversation turns to gun control, and gun sales are up significantly since last weekend. Lack of Education, mental health issues and Psyco-tropic drugs are a big reason for all of this. The last 5 or 6 mass murders all had some issues they either had been or were being treated for. This whole thing is sad and an answer will be found, but only through calm, informed discussion.

On a side note I read yesterday that if the fore fathers indeed wanted us to have weapons, then all of them should be muskets of the type used during the writing of the Constitution.
 
This may help you feel just a bit better:

Jennifer Quinn
Staff Reporter

Dear Newtown:

I must confess that I’m glad to be leaving you — though you’re probably even happier to see me, and other people like me, go. As the week goes on and Christmas gets closer, there will likely be fewer members of my profession driving around your town, down Main St., and through Sandy Hook.

You’ve been incredibly kind. And I would guess that not every one of us has deserved that. But I want you to know that I am very grateful for the patience you displayed when answering my questions, and will always admire the grace with which you handled the terrible events that took place in your pretty town.

I arrived here on Friday night — hours after a troubled man who carried a scary rifle burst into the elementary school and killed 26 of your neighbours, 20 of them children — and went straight to the Catholic church.

Hundreds of you were huddled on the lawn. Originally, I thought the service was over, and people were just waiting for friends or whatever, and were going to head home. Wrong. People were staying. And talking. To each other, to members of the clergy — and to reporters. Tons of reporters. We represented media outlets from around the world. Norway. Spain. Korea, too, I later found out. Canadians, obviously. And from all over the U.S.

And you talked to us. To me. About how you felt about your kids, and how you worried for your friends, and how you hoped your town would eventually be OK. No one was angry at the assailant, not at that point. People were just terribly sad. And even as you cried, and hugged, and sang, only one out of the many people I approached said he’d rather not talk — and he said that with a polite, sad smile. And then he said to me, “But thanks for asking.”

I think you wanted to tell your stories, and those of your community, and I believe you did that beautifully.

I’ve never lived in the United States, but I’ve spent a lot of time here. For a couple of years I travelled here almost weekly — I was covering professional sports for the Star — and then, when I moved overseas, I worked for an American news organization, with many American colleagues.

I love the U.S., and I love Americans, and I always felt like I knew and understood this place. But here, in Newtown, I was reminded of the differences between our two countries.

It’s not just your gun laws, though those are one obvious difference. Put it this way: If I had gone to Newmarket, Ont. — or New Westminster, B.C., or pretty much any other Canadian community — I think things would have been different.

This isn’t to say that Canadians aren’t just as thoughtful, or as welcoming. But I think we’re more reticent when it comes to talking to the press — and nowhere is that difference more obvious than when it comes to public officials.

Just look at the remarkable news briefing held by Dr. H. Wayne Carver, your state’s chief medical examiner, on Saturday afternoon. True, there is no prosecution in this case so he doesn’t have to be careful about what he says, but I don’t think there’s any way any Canadian official would get up and speak as frankly as he did.

He said how many times the victims he saw had been shot. He described what the bullets did to their flesh. He gave the kind of detail that sometimes we don’t even hear spoken in courtrooms. I was astonished.

And then, I have to confess, I was also taken aback Sunday afternoon when I heard a smart, pretty 21-year-old girl — who was setting up to take donations for the families in your town — make the “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” argument.

I’m not naive, but I was surprised when she and her two friends all said, sure, they know people with guns. I don’t think I know anyone with a gun (cops notwithstanding). Look around, one of them said to me, waving her arm. Newtown is surrounded by woods. People hunt. Of course they have guns.

Zoe told me her boyfriend’s mom and her best friend’s mom were in Sandy Hook Elementary when the shooting took place. So I thought she might now think that people don’t need weapons.

“Some people are saying this is about gun control,” she said. “I don’t believe that. This is about one sick person.

“I don’t forgive him,” she said. “I really don’t, at all.”

That was about the only anger I heard during the days I spent in your town. Mostly, people talked about love.

I haven’t cried yet. I’ve been close, but when you’re working, you just kind of keep on going. I’ve tried not to look too closely at the pictures of the little girls — they remind me too much of people who are important to me. And I grew up surrounded by amazing women who are teachers.

So I am glad to be leaving you. Because I get to go home and see those people. I’ll get to hug them on Christmas Eve, and I’ll get to laugh with my girlfriends, and sit at a favourite bar, and leave some of what I heard and saw in Newtown behind.

I won’t forget you, though. And when I stop and remember, that’s probably when I’ll cry.

Sincerely,

Jennifer
Kind of like Hitler telling Poland that he is sorry for the inconvenience, my army was just passing through on our way to take over the world.

Let's not forget that the mass media is controlled by corporations who are all connected to the Industrial/ Military Complex. The media has been used to lie to the world about many recent events such as 9-11. Never trust the media because they are corrupt. The media is not your friend.
 
Kind of like Hitler telling Poland that he is sorry for the inconvenience, my army was just passing through on our way to take over the world.

Let's not forget that the mass media is controlled by corporations who are all connected to the Industrial/ Military Complex. The media has been used to lie to the world about many recent events such as 9-11. Never trust the media because they are corrupt. The media is not your friend.

not all of us buy into the paranoia
 
Yes this has morphed into a gun debate and IMO has no place here but that is not for me to decide. I will not read or participate further in this thread and will leave you with this, Just ask yourself what you as an individual could have done to help prevent something like this? I wish you all well and good day.
 
"I totally understand where your disgust and frustration come from. Many people are selfish but it does make me worry if 150 people who feel like you do got together in a legislative capacity, how quickly would you be trying to mandate what people spend their personal money on?"

You bet I would mandate it,and as far as what that personal money is spent on I think I mentioned something previously about the safety and welfare of children.

You can rest easy though, that will never happen. Most of here in good old North America are far more concerned with our own personal level of comfort and staying fat than doing anything that might benefit the greater good.
 
I'm a little late to the thread but I have to compliment this site for the diverse group of folks here having such a rational discussion.

There are somewhere close to 300 million firearms in the US if you believe the statistics. (I think they are a little low based on production figures I've read.) Enough for almost every person to have one in this country. Restricting the supply in the future will do nothing. We can use Mexico as an example of how effective sweeping gun control in N. America is.

Removing existing firearms from their current owners would be a sure fire way to start another civil war in this country so no politician will touch that with a ten foot pole. So we are left with gun control being nothing more than a panacea for the emotionally charged constituents.

When terrorists took over airplanes and commited their evil acts we armed pilots, beefed up airport security, and expanded the air marshal program. These actions seem to have prevented further attacks, however the long term effectiveness remains to be seen one we leave the terrorists homeland.

Psychotics will always exist. They will find ways to do their evil deeds with or without firearms. The only realistic way to stop them is to identify and help them before they do their damage. If they aren't identified before they try to do an act of evil we need to make it difficult to find the time to do much damage before they are neutralized. The only way to do that it to have an on site response rather then waiting for the police to respond from across town.
 
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