The tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School again raises the need for common-sense gun control. However, it also raises complex questions about the dark underbelly of U.S. society.
Gratuitous violence is popular fare in video games, movies and toy stores; callous treatment toward others, diatribes and raw threats have replaced the more reasoned discourse of our better angels.
The scourge of senseless violence in America, while fueled by the widespread availability of assault rifles and extended ammunition clips, has deeper roots.
President Obama gave a tearful and moving talk on the deaths of 20 children who will not grow up to attend a prom, get married or have their own children. Yet, with a certain collateral coldness, the President continues to authorize drone strikes in the Middle East that kill not only Afghan or Yemeni or Pakistani adults, but children as well. Like their young Connecticut counterparts, these little kids were also in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The road to a safer American community and better world will demand soul searching, radical policy change, and some serious repentance. I hope we are up to the challenge.
REV. JOHN A. EKMAN
Senior minister Presbyterian
and New England
Congregational Church Saratoga Springs