Some thoughts about gun control people

The facts are staggering; twenty children, seven adults including the shooter and his mother and a school full of traumatized children who will have nightmares for a lifetime. Our minds scream for a solution. If only we could turn back the clock. If only we could have predicted it. If only we could have prevented a very disturbed young man from ever holding a gun. If only the teachers would have had a better way to protect the children than to place themselves between the gun and the children. If only... If only... If only...

We can't. It's over. The people are gone in an insane tragedy that has torn through the families at a time when holiday celebrations should have been the focus for them. At Christmas we hear about peace, love, joy and all things beautiful. These families aren't feeling that.

How do we respond? Well, we could sympathize with them and pray for them. We could allow the professionals to do the grisly work of filtering through the facts to find ways to prevent a similar tragedy in the future. We could also use these families' united tragedy to promote our views on gun control.

I understand what everyone is saying, and I have friends on both sides of the argument. If there were more good citizens with guns there would be less bad citizens able to use them. The children would have been saved. Alternately, if the guns weren't available, he might never have placed his hands on one and the children would have been saved.

All of us can promote our own agenda. It's not about our agenda. I'd like to remind all of us that it's about the lost lives. I wish I could take the pain away from every one of the parents who have no one to run to the tree and open those princess castles and Lego sets. I would love to find a way to make the heartache just a little less devastating for the children and grandchildren who will have to figure out how to cook Christmas dinner without her this year. I can't do that, either. Neither will I use their grief to promote my viewpoints. I choose to let them grieve and pray for them every time I think about them. It's about the people.