I've stayed silent on the issue of the shooting at Sandy Hook elementary ever since it happened last Friday. The reason, I didn't know enough about it to give it the full analysis that an issue like that deserves. Truth be told I'll probably never understand this mess, and that's OK. I doubt anyone who has spoken or written about it understands it any more or less than I do.

     I was working a double shift at my paying job, and on a break when I heard about it. Another shooting? It seems like every time the heat from one shooting in the news dies down another takes its place. Predictably the gun control freaks are politicizing this story to the point of nausea as well.

     I stayed silent as long as I have for two reasons. First, I didn't want to write about it at all, but I knew that as unpleasant as the task was, i had to cover it. Being courageous and dynamic comes at a price. Sometimes I have make the hard choices. Secondly, I wanted to get all the facts right. No speculation here! what I wrote about this had to be what I knew to be true. 28 people died, and 20 of them were children. One minute they had their whole life in front of them, the next minute they had a one man wrecking crew shooting a gun in front of them. I owe it to them to get the details right.

     Once again people are under the mistaken belief that the absence of a gun would have prevented this tragedy. But on the same day that school was being shot up, 20 children were being stabbed in China. The person that did the killing wanted a lot of people to hurt and he didn't care how it happened. He got what he wanted! The sad part is that we as humans say that we don't want to here about things like this, and yet when you saw the headline I used, you kept reading. That's human nature for you!

     A photo from Sir Richard Branson that has made the rounds on Facebook reports that nearly 11,000 people were murdered by handguns last year. When you consider that there are 80 million guns in this country, that shows that guns are not the problem. Don't get me wrong 11,000 deaths is 11,000 too many, but the solution is not to take 79,989,000 guns away from those who take the responsibility to heart. There has got to be a better way, and I hope we find it before one more innocent life is cut tragically short. God be with you and do the best you can!