{"id":4332,"date":"2013-12-14T10:26:28","date_gmt":"2013-12-14T15:26:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.trinitydc.edu\/president\/?p=4332"},"modified":"2013-12-16T14:13:27","modified_gmt":"2013-12-16T19:13:27","slug":"sandy-hook-and-american-amnesia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.trinitydc.edu\/president\/2013\/12\/sandy-hook-and-american-amnesia\/","title":{"rendered":"Sandy Hook and American Amnesia"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Screen-Shot-2012-12-19-at-3.19.22-PM\"<\/a>(Graphic:\u00a0 School Shootings since 1992<\/a> from Stoptheshootings.org<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Another disturbed young man, another rifle in a school, another blood-stained memory in a crowded field of shame and blame.\u00a0 Yesterday the scene was set in Arapahoe High School<\/a> in Colorado, just a few miles from that icon of school tragedy, Columbine.\u00a0 How many more times<\/a> can we stand to watch the helicopter videos of kids marching out of schools with their hands up while police swat teams in combat gear race into classrooms festooned with arts projects and blood splatters?<\/p>\n

Arapahoe’s tragedy<\/a> may seem, to some, quite minor — only one student died, the one with the gun, so the incident already is fading from front pages.\u00a0 We forget at our peril.<\/p>\n

Today is the first year anniversary of one of the worst school shootings<\/a> ever — the Sandy Hook<\/a> grade school in Newtown, Connecticut, where 20 children and 6 teachers died at the hands of a profoundly deranged young man.\u00a0 Only the Virginia Tech horror in 2007 had more victims (33), but something about the murder of first graders at Sandy Hook really caught the national conscience.\u00a0 One year ago, out of that impossibly sorrowful day, we had reason to hope that this nation would finally have the guts to do something about serious gun control.<\/p>\n

Hopes for a national epidemic of common sense and moral courage on guns have faded faster than the winter sun.\u00a0 The most do-nothing Congress<\/a> in modern American history could not even gather itself to enact a modest measure<\/a> on background checks<\/a>.\u00a0 Most of the laws passed in the states<\/a> since Sandy Hook have actually made it easier to get a gun.<\/p>\n

Let’s face it:\u00a0 the National Rifle Association owns more votes than the American People.\u00a0 Poll after poll shows that the majority of Americans want some sane and sensible limits on gun ownership, but Congress and state legislatures repeatedly follow the money.\u00a0\u00a0 If anyone wants to write a term paper or dissertation on the corruption of money in American politics, take up the topic of gun control.\u00a0 No other single issue —- not the banking industry, not the auto industry, not pharmaceuticals, not education, not peace, not poverty —- no other single issue has the power to shut down rational thinking and action for justice like guns.<\/p>\n

American amnesia is a terrible disease when it comes to gun violence<\/a>.\u00a0 We said things would change after Columbine<\/a>, after Virginia Tech, after Aurora, after Sandy Hook<\/a>, after the Navy Yard shootings here in D.C.<\/p>\n

Here’s what changed:\u00a0 schools have become fortresses, children have become used to diving under desks and hiding in closets, teachers have become adept at planning protective strategies, administrators have become hardened to the need to divert funds from library to security.\u00a0 At workplaces and shopping malls and anywhere people gather, the security is tighter and tighter because the mass shootings<\/a> are worse and worse.<\/p>\n

Here’s what’s not changed:\u00a0 the prevalence of guns.\u00a0 In fact, in a sense, the prevalence of guns had become worse, much worse.\u00a0 Everyone else’s freedom has eroded considerably, except those who pack heat.<\/p>\n

The biggest lie the NRA spouts is that more guns will make us more safe.<\/p>\n

Tell that to the parents who cannot give their dead children presents this Christmas.<\/p>\n

Tell that to the thousands of students traumatized on those forced marches with hands held high across school parking lots.<\/p>\n

Tell that to the American citizens who want government to do something other than dither and argue and fritter away our best hopes for a peaceful society.<\/p>\n

A government that cannot protect its children from mass violence is no government at all.<\/p>\n

Today we’ll have moments of silence.\u00a0 Is silence the only legacy of Sandy Hook?<\/p>\n

See my Huffington Post blog on gun violence: Silence of the Lame<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When will the violence end? Moments of silence are a weak response to the epidemic of mass shootings in schools. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[509,14,6,19,787,20,23,24],"tags":[1316,1319,1318,125,1317,564,560,1268,1103,559,1109],"class_list":["post-4332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-civil-human-rights","category-education","category-media","category-living","category-political-issues","category-politics","category-social-issues","category-social-justice-issues","tag-arapahoe-high-school","tag-aurora-movie-theater","tag-columbine","tag-congress","tag-do-nothing-congress","tag-gun-control","tag-national-rifle-association","tag-navy-yard-shootings","tag-newtown","tag-nra","tag-sandy-hook"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitydc.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitydc.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitydc.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitydc.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitydc.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitydc.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4332\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitydc.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitydc.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitydc.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}