Author's thoughts about Newtown

As much as I would love to keep this site free of any mention of current events, the creator of this fiction does not live in a vacuum.  Characters are based on, and have similarities to, real people and events.  So it is that I point out the connections between the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT, on Friday and the world I chose to make:

• Some of the 20 children who were killed were roughly the same age as Belinda (9 years old) and Bryson (7).
• Brenda has an emotional disability, as reportedly did the killer at Sandy Hook, Adam Lanza (and unfortunately too many other accused mass gun murderers through the years).  In addition, before Brenda made it into eternity, she loved to collect obituaries and tried to send personal messages to the survivors' families.  (I got that trait from one of my Facebook friends, Deb Holmes.)
• The Bowlings, who recently became friends with Buddy Wayne Barefoot, consist of 26 family members - the same number as the number of victims in Newtown.

Here's what I wrote about it for an online forum the day it occurred:
It's funny (as in ironic funny not ha-ha funny) that I was right here this morning when Moo made the first post about this event here.  I then left for ABC Adult School.  The class was just getting started (9:50 a.m. Pacific time) at almost the exact moment that police gave the death toll.  Needless to say, I struggled emotionally through the rest of the day at school.

It was during a long break from classes that I felt I needed to be at a place with a TV set.  There, I saw President Obama's emotional comments and the start of the briefing with Dannel Malloy, Connecticut's governor.

I'm with the president.  Enough is enough.  But what to do?  Thoughts and prayers are obviously great, but it's time to move beyond that.

Somehow, some way, the power of the NRA must be broken.  It is its policies that have helped to keep the gun count - and the death rates by gun - much higher in the U.S. that in any other industrialized nation.

But again, how?  Do we have a March on Washington?  An Occupy movement?  Buy ad time during the Super Bowl?  Any better ideas?

For now, and as always, (three emoticons of crying)

Fortunately, many charities have come through to help those affected, and here's a list.