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Shooting at Connecticut elementary school

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Libby

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  • Elders (Moderators)

This is such a shocking event. Obviously there's only partial details at the moment, but it appears there are 27 fatalities, mostly children.

I can't begin to imagine what the families and the community are going through right now, or how they will cope in the hours and days and weeks ahead and beyond.

You know, I do try to be even-handed most of the time, but I'd have preferred that he had been taken down/shot by a police officer and survived to spend the rest of his life in prison.

I'm so distressed by this that the emotion I mostly feel is just anger. You know, we parents do our best, and this was just a normal schoolday, so get them up, washed, dressed, breakfast, teeth brushed, hair combed, have they got their book bag/homework/gym kit, get to school on time - and then this. It's the nastiest, most evil, type of crime.

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our family is still coming to tems with murder of a family member by a nutter and I know I speak for most of them in saying I wish he [ who shall not be named] was dead. Either by the police or by his own hand it would be good to know he no longer drew breath or would continue to get the attention he so craves and the waste of resourse to keep him alive for decades to come.

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  • Elders (Moderators)

I think it's not just the enormity of this kind of situation but that it affects so many more people. I was thinking of you, Earthnut, because you know that the loss of a child (of whatever age, even if they're grown up and taller than their mum) is a grief that never goes away. And I was also thinking of you, Walkabout, because you lost your nephew John in very similar circumstances in July this year (when it was just supposed to be having some fun and popcorn with friends).

There have been similar shootings in the UK, in particular an attack on a primary school in Dunblane in Scotland in 1996. No doubt there are parents, and also survivors, for whom also this will bring back painful memories.

I feel very sorry for the brother, who heard the news while he was sat in his office. So he now has to deal with the loss of his mother, along with the knowledge that his brother carried out this awful attack. I'd guess that he'll probably never recover from this.

And it happened so close to Christmas, which is supposed to be a time for families to get together for fun and laughter. But now there'll be homes where that won't happen, and maybe never can again.

I don't think this is a sign of TEOTWAWKI, because violence against vulnerable people (whether children in school, or people who just happened to be in the wrong place) has been going on for millennia. And we'll probably never know why these killers acted the way they did.

But I think what we can do is spare a little bit of time during the upcoming holiday/festival to think about families for whom it can never be as portrayed on TV commercials.

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  • Elders (Moderators)

I've just read on the BBC news website that Dylan Hockley and his family are believed to have moved from my county in the UK to Newtown two years ago. I know that it shouldn't make any difference where a family has come from, because the brutal death of a child isn't something where borders or nationalities or whatever plays a part; but it's just thinking that those parents would have made a conscious decision to move the family to what they believed was a good place to raise their children. And from the quotes from the family on the BBC site, that's what their life was like in Newtown.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20764566

There's one bit that I particularly noticed: "We will always be a family of four." A couple of decades ago, we were on a family-oriented holiday and I got talking to one of the fathers, doing the usual "so, how many children do you have?" kind of conversation. His response was that they had three, but only two with them as one had died, but they always liked to include the one who they'd lost because that child was still real. Ever since then, I've tried not to use the past tense in terms of those who have died, because they still are even so.

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  • Elders (Moderators)

And I've just read that the Westboro nutters are planning to picket the funerals, which is just sick. I know there's a lot of difference in the laws between the UK and the USA, and that freedom of speech is highly valued and protected in the USA, and also that people in the UK feel that sometimes our laws are a bit draconian - but powers given to the UK police would mean that the nutters could at least be prevented from getting anywhere near the town.

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It's a shame that there always has to be "nutters." Some people just can't leave other alone, especially during a time of grief. Pitiful.

The "departed" are always with us. I always prefer the terms "crossed over" or "made the transition." It simply means crossing over from the flesh into the spirit. We are a spirit, we have a mind, a soul realm of feelings and emotions, and we live in a body. When the body is no more, the spirit still remains. We can no longer see the other person, but we can feel and/or sense their presence. I speak from my own experience. My oldest son crossed over in 08, and even though I can no longer see him, I know he is still here, in me and around me. Spirits are not bound by time or space. They can however be bound by unfinished business with someone in the flesh realm.

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