The Loss of Innocence

I find it both ironic and sickening that I as a volunteer at River City's hospital,  I had to attend 'Active Shooter Training' earlier this week. Yesterday, the airwaves and media are filled with the news of a lone gunman who entered an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut and for reason's yet known, opened fire and took the lives of 20 kindergardeners and several adults.

My heart goes out to the families who's little ones never had a chance to live, to those children who no longer have the blissful joy of childhood ignorance, and for the community forever changed. With only 27,000 members of the town, it is a near certainty that everyone living there knows many of those lives taken or destroyed.

This morning I awoke to find that beyond the sentiments of sorrow from a nation in shock at this tragedy, the news and media are filled with polarizing sentiments regarding the serious nature of the cursed situation that befell the families and community members in Connecticut.

Please, to those who are calling for action at this moment, do not diminish the loss of these innocents by politicizing the behavior of what is one sick individual and to not cast blame without knowing the details of the situation.

This is not about guns, this is about something far deeper and it will not be solved if we do not come together as guardians of our young and without casting blame and declaring who is more righteous than the other.

Now is the time to pause and mourn the innocence lost. Once the tiny souls have been put to rest, let us then begin the process of preventing this from happening again.