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Read other letters about this article
I appreciate your objection to my words, and I would not use them in speaking to the family of those who were killed, and if they read them here, so be it. I would hope that you, and they, would read them in the context of my letter. In the presence of grief, the rules of engagement are different than when taking a clear look at the real world.
I have two small boys at home, and they are more likely to be killed by the events I describe that by events similar to those on Monday. Millions of times more likely. The shootings that took place on monday, were, in my view, less preventable than the deaths that take place from cars and pollution and war, all of which with proper political will could be significantly alleviated. Unless this fucking war is still going on when they turn 18.
So much death is preventable, and yet so little of it is actually prevented. Could these deaths have been prevented? Not through legislation, but rather by us a human beings actually being in touch with one another.
Even then, probably not - Crazy people live among us. I think that the toll that they exert on us is one of the hardest things, and least preventable things, to accept about being in a free society.
