27 people were dead after that shooting - 20 children, 6 adults and the shooter himself, who was killed by his own hand. Hashtags have been trending on Twitter like #CTshooting and #prayfornewtown. The only reason this is trending on Twitter is because it's been the second deadliest school shooting and the third-deadliest school massacre recorded in US History, but this only one shooting among hundreds that've been occurring since the 1700's. What I don't know is - why? Where do people find the motivation to go into a school full of young children with bright futures with a gun and a plan to kill? School shootings aren't limited to psycho killers and young children, I know.
Many school shootings have also been inside jobs - a student from a certain high school with a vicious plan to kill off everyone who had ever offended him. That's what happened in the 1999 Columbine High School massacre. It was the shooting that inspired the 2003 film, Elephant, written and directed by Gus Van Sant. It may have been more understandable, with a clearer motive, but it is definitely not excused. A life of another human being is not for you, or anyone else, to take. It has never been for you to take.
The really heartbreaking part, though, is seeing all the letters that were written by children who knew they were going to be killed. They knew! Can you imagine how much pain they must have felt, writing those letters? These are elementary school students, for pete's sake! They weren't immediately shot - they had time. They had time to think about how their family would be affected if they didn't make it out of here alive. They had time to write these letters. They had time to think about just how painfully they would die.
Take a look at these letters that were found, written by children that died;
As one Twitter user stated; "When you are a parent, you are responisble for other human beings - your children. Not knowing their fate each day is terrifying."
The names of the dead children and adults have not been released yet, besides the name of the shooter, as they need families to identify the bodies. The police are undergoing investigations now. This has been the fifth school shooting in the US just this year, and it's really put a damper on Newtown's Christmas celebrations.
I feel really sorry and indignant about the whole affair, but really, there's not much I can do. I pray for peace in Newtown and for the families of those involved...and I really hope this is a warning to the American public; do you really want to live in this kind of fear for your children, knowing that you won't be with them and that they are constantly in risk because deadly weapons are legal (and illegally bought)?
[As someone has graciously pointed out] But then there is the other problem. "Guns don't kill people, people kill people with guns." So there it is, laid out to you. School shootings don't happen in American because guns are legal. They happen because they have bad people turned into murderers and the fact that weapons can be bought only puts that in their advantage.
What the government needs is a good, solid plan if they plan to target the root cause of why these people turn into such inhumane life-takers. But until the American government finds time to deal with a more trivial problem of their 99 problems...
R.I.P to all the victims.
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