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Sunday, December 16, 2012

Thoughts

I planned to take a break from Christmas preparations today and write a blog post about one of several projects I have finished recently, but every time I sat down to write something I found myself thinking about the devastating events that took place in Connecticut.

When 9/11 happened I was working on a quilt that will forever be associated for me with that event and became a kind of affirmation in the face of evil.  Now I am working on a quilt with a light in darkness theme and at first I thought, Of course, this will be a way of working through this.  But the darkness of my quilt is rich and warm and full of mystery, not the jagged, cold, terrifying darkness of this event.

Unlike those parents and the families of the slain teachers whose world has been forever changed, we will all somehow absorb this shadow into our lives, along with all the other shadows we have experienced and we will continue on. Like moss covering a fallen tree, daily life will cover over the strong emotions we are all feeling right now.  But will we have learned anything?  Will we actually move from just emotion into action?  As a nation, we must consider two questions:

  • If Adam Lanza did not have semi-automatic weapons capable of spraying hundreds of bullets, how many of those children would still be alive? 
  • Do ordinary citizens need to own such weapons?  
Can we remember the violence that was the last image those children saw and hold on to the painful horror of it long enough to answer these questions?

4 comments:

Gypsy Quilter said...

That's a very good question. I for one cannot think of any reason why such weapons would be needed in normal, everyday life in the USA. If I were living in a country full of warfare and a daily struggle to survive it would be far different. Has there been any news as to why those weapons were available to him?

quilthexle said...

I hear you ... and I could not agree more. As I live in a country with pretty strict restrictrions towards weapons, I simply can't understand why people would want to have so dangerous items in their homes ? I mean - don't we all live in the so-called civilized western hemisphere?

Madalene Axford Murphy said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Madalene Axford Murphy said...

The weapons were reported to have been bought legally by the shooter's mother, but some of the early details were not accurate so I am not sure about those. Can't imagine why his mother needed or thought she needed an arsenal in, as Frauke put it, a supposedly civilized country not at war.