gun control
Kinda seems like a one sided conversation, doesn’t it? I’m tired of “conversations on race” whenever another innocent, unarmed black person is executed by the police. They’re as perfunctory as they are repetitive.
We need justice, not another hollow conversation that doesn’t change anything and does nothing to prevent the next shooting.
(original image credit: Clay Bennett)
#powerful
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — Authorities in Alabama say a man opened fire in a hospital, wounding an officer and two employees before he was fatally shot by police.
Birmingham Police Sgt. Johnny Williams says the officer and employees suffered injuries that are not considered life-threatening.
Williams says police were called because a man with a gun was walking through St. Vincent’s Hospital on Saturday morning. When he was confronted by officers, he started shooting and wounded one of the officers. That’s when the second officer shot and killed the man.
Detectives are still working to determine why the armed man was in the hospital.
Victims - Sandy Hook Elementary, Connecticut
Charlotte Bacon, 6
Daniel Barden, 7
Olivia Engel, 6
Josephine Gay, 7
Ana M. Marquez-Greene, 6
Dylan Hockley, 6
Madeleine F. Hsu, 6
Catherine V. Hubbard, 6
Chase Kowalski, 7
Jesse Lewis, 6
James Mattioli, 6
Grace McDonnell, 7
Emilie Parker, 6
Jack Pinto, 6
Noah Pozner, 6
Caroline Previdi, 6
Jessica Rekos, 6
Aveille Richman, 6
Benjamin Wheeler, 6
Allison N. Wyatt, 6
Rachel Davino, 29
Dawn Hochsprung, 47 (principal)
Anne Marie Murphy, 52
Lauren Russeau, 30 (substitute teacher)
Mary Sherlach, 56 (counselor)
Victoria Soto, 27 (teacher)
We should be focusing on the victims and their families… we should be focusing on the children that saw and heard the horror as it was happening… we should be focusing on making sure mental health services are available to everyone and that everyone gets the proper diagnosis and treatment… we should be focusing on not turning the perpetrators of such heinous acts into overnight celebrities… Gun control can wait… Events like these bring on social and mental disorders in these still developing children… and then the cycle begins all over again… Help the Children First!
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Photo Credit: Guardian Angel Black & White by bigcatwcu on Flickr.
I was brought to tears when I heard the reported say that when one of children described what they heard was like pots and pans falling; such an innocent answer to what we all know to have been gunshots.
While everyone demanding stronger regulations in Gun Control, is there anyone else talking the people that survived and how will they cope? Especially the children. Shell shock or Post-traumatic Stress Disorder in children can lead to social disorders, depression, and substance abuse disorders. There are less articles about what to do for the surviving children then there are about the politics of this tragedy.
Even at their early age, these kids may turn to certain behaviors to self-medicate the emotional pain from this event. These behaviors can progressively worsen; a child experimenting with drugs, which seems to be the solution that helps to numb the pain, become addicted and starts doing things so that he/she can obtain more substance. This all doesn’t happen overnight; this can carry-on into adulthood. Drug use may not even start until a later age due to not being treated for PTSD.
I am not an expert, nor have I ever claimed to be one. I simply voicing a concern. The Children must come first!! Help them so that they can move passed this horror. What I am getting at is that if we don’t help these surviving kids now, then they may grow up with a ticking time-bomb and no one will know when either of them will explode leading yet to another Columbine, Virginia Tech, and now Sandy Hook.
Gun Control after… Children First!
