"My Friend in Sandy Hook"

This moving letter below, sent early Saturday, is from our friend Doug Moss at E: The Environmental Magazine, whose life was touched by the tragedy in Newtown, Conn.

Scott Harris,
Between The Lines Radio Newsmagazine
http://BTLonline.org 

UPDATES Dec. 16 and Dec. 17 at end, below.
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                                                                (Todd Maisel/New York Daily News)

Thousands mourn young lives lost at a vigil at St. Rose Church in Newtown,
Conn. Friday night.

Hi all,

I met and became friends with a woman from Sandy Hook earlier this year. She's a single mother of 5 kids, two teens from a first marriage and three grade-schoolers from a second marriage. She's a nurse and a real supermom.

I texted her last night (Friday, Dec. 14) to say "please tell me your kids are alright," because I imagined they went to that school. She texted back to say "Noah is dead. My beautiful 6-year-old boy is dead. He's gone. His body is still at the school."

Just now she texted me: "The pain is unendurable."

Noah Pozner, 6, was one of the victims in the Sandy Hook
elementary school massacre in Newtown, Conn., Dec. 14, 2012

How horrible! I had dinner with her whole family several months back and played video games with this little boy, who has a twin sister and a slightly older sister who were also at the school at the time of the incident.

It's time to outlaw the goddamned NRA! To paraphrase Bob Dylan, how many people must die before too many people have died? This notion about "the right to bear arms" is so outdated! It originated at a time when warfare was still fought on foot and horseback and there were real concerns that someone could burn your house down and kill your family. No longer relevant today, yet the NRA plies this notion as part of their overall fear-mongering so that the numbnuts in this country all buy their guns and ammo for fear that there's some black, gay, Muslim, Commie, terrorist or whomever lurking on every corner waiting to pounce and take away our rights. These are the people, remember from "Bowling for Columbine," that held a conference and a pro-gun rally in Littleton, CO (with Charlton Heston doing his "from my cold dead hands" routine) right after the Columbine shooting.

I don’t know the stats, but I'm sure a very tiny percentage of gun deaths have anything to do with protecting one's home from intruders – they are accidents, crimes of passion and crazy people like this and so many other recent incidents, which is why guns need to be banned or sharply curtailed, not some namby-pamby voluntary "turn in your gun" thing. But the NRA has the politicians in their pocket and our electoral system permits that, even more now than ever.

A good example of moving on from outdated thinking can be seen in the removal of Westport's Nike missiles in the 1960s from the area that is now Bedford Middle School (and the tracking station is now the Westport observatory). When the missiles were in place, it was at a time when airplanes might still fly here and bomb our shores. When technology changed and that likelihood dissipated, the missiles were removed.

If the U.S. military knows when certain weapons are no longer needed, the rest of the country should pay heed. I know it's more complicated than that, but this is all such an outrage. If this incident doesn't mobilize the masses against guns, I don't know what will.

Doug

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E - The Environmental Magazine
www.emagazine.com

UPDATES - Related links:

• Veronique Pozner's moving eulogy to her son, Noah, Huffington Post, Dec. 17, 2012 
• Our blog post,"Will the Slaughter of the Innocents in Newtown Lead to Gun Law Reform in U.S.?",  Between The Lines blog, Dec. 16, 20
• Connecticut School Shooting: First 2 Funerals Held for Jack Pinto and Noah Pozner, ABC News, Dec. 17, 2012