Unfortunately, I can speak with experience on what it is like to lose a child. I buried three of them - triplets - that were born too early, but not so early that it was a miscarriage. That was - itself - such a horrible loss that today's events took me right back to what I felt on that horrible day.
And that was not the loss of vibrant, young lives that I had begun to raise, had bonded with and had loved for what they were as little people - not just loved for the natural reasons that come from paternity.
I cannot even imagine the loss that these parents, these siblings, these grandparents, family and friends are feeling. If it is anything like what I felt there is dispair, shock and anger.
Hell, I'm angry. And I'm truly angry at the NRA. Here's a portion of America that wields far more power than they should. And it's not rational.
I would ask the leadership of the NRA: Have any of you ever buried a child? Do you know the sense of loss that heals over time, but the hole in your heart that never leaves you?
Can you focus for a minute on some sense of humanity instead of your inane fears of the black helicopters, or the impending race war, or whatever other warped thoughts that have taken root in your heads and twisted the right to shoot Bambi into a paranoid fantasy?
What kind of people are you - NRA people - that you live in a world of moral relativism that allows psychotics like the sicko that acted out today to hold more importance than the right of my children, or anybody else's children for that matter, to go about their daily business of just being kids and growing up without the fear of such disturbing behavior?
What kind of party is the Republican party that will do anything for these ass-hats to the point that allows them fight for the right to avoid a harmless background check over the real right to life (which includes the right to not get shot and killed). The principle of the 2nd amendment? Oh please!
And - for that matter - how can said "pro-life" party be so callous about the safety and health of children once they leave the womb?
And don't even get me started on coverage and support for mental health care!
How insane is all of this? How many children need to die?
How many rabid NRA freaks will enjoy a sleepless night tonight? I can guarantee you -from experience - almost all of these parents will. Some may never sleep again. Their lives have been unalterably shattered, and they will all face a choice in their grief: To grow from it and cherish their own lives and loved ones all the more for it, or to take a far darker path filled with continued pain, anguish and suffering. I did not choose the darker path. Unfortunately, my former wife did.
No, the NRA didn't buy those guns and they didn't pull the triggers. But they are utterly and completely complicit by denying all of this pain in favor of talk of "principles."
I ask you all - what principles could possibly allow for the acceptance of this tragedy and pain? That resounding silence? That is why the NRA can go to hell.