EFFINGHAM —
There's lots of people who have The Answer in the wake of the horrific mass shooting in the formerly idyllic town of Newtown, Conn.
For example, there's a renewed push for gun control, at least when it comes to assault weapons that can spit out 30 bullets per clip at high velocity. But is that fair to the folks who responsibly use those types of weapons for sporting purposes?
I'm pretty sure the crafters of the Constitution didn't have modern weaponry in mind when they drafted the Second Amendment. But I'm also pretty sure that most people who own Bushmaster rifles don't have any intention of shooting up a first-grade classroom either.
I don't have the answer to that question. Not yet.
Then there's the push to make our schools more secure. Really?
Over the last 10 years, we have seen a proliferation of safety measures implemented at area schools. Rare is the school where one can just walk in the front door and just waltz around like they own the place. Nowadays, one must - at the least - sign in at the office. Many schools force you to push a silly buzzer before they will let you in.
We saw how effective the little buzzer was at Newtown, didn't we? But let's say our Soldier of Satan didn't have his handy-dandy assault rifle to shoot out the front window. What then?
There's a number of things that he could have done. The death toll might not have reached 26 before the cops showed up, but he certainly could have taken some lives without that Bushmaster.
The shooter could have posed as a deliveryman, or even an older brother needing to pull a younger sibling out of class for an emergency. That would have gained him access to the building and free rein to cause all sorts of mayhem.
Or, he could have dispensed with trying to get into the school altogether and parked a car laden with explosives as close to the front door as he could. He could have then either, a) done the suicide bomber thing and blown up the car with himself inside, or b) walked away from the car and pressed the send button on his cell phone.
I don't know what it is with people who have no more regard for human life that they desire to kill as many people as they can in a short period of life before, usually, taking their own lives so they don't have to face the justice system.
But they are out there apparently. Truth be told, they've been out there for many years. Perhaps some of you old-timers remember Howard Unruh, who killed 13 people as he was walking around his Camden, N.J. neighborhood in 1949. He spent his remaining 60 years of life in a mental institution.
Then there was Charles Whitman, who climbed the tower at the University of Texas in Austin in 1966 and blasted away for several horrifying minutes, killing 14 before a policeman shot him to death. As a 7-year-old who was already reading the newspaper, I thought that was pretty scary.
Adam Lanza is simply the latest in a long line of Soldiers of Satan who have so little regard for human life that they just stop caring, if they ever did care.
So what do we do?
What can we do?
The only thing I can think of is to love other people as much as we can and hope they reciprocate that love with something other than a gun or a knife.
You can pass all the gun laws in the world and turn schools into secure fortresses, but I fear that killers are still going to kill.
That's the scary thing.
Bill Grimes can be reached at 217-347-7151, ext. 132, or at bill.grimes@effinghamdailynews.com.
Features
Related Photos
-
Bill Grimes
Discussion
The Newtown tragedy: So many questions, so few answers
- Features
-
-
Feces contaminates 58 percent of public swimming pools
Human feces taints more than half of public swimming pools, a finding U.S. health officials are using to urge better personal hygiene as the summer months approach.
-
VIDEO: Meet the family that never learned to walk on two legs
Their parents had accepted the children as they were; they'd never tried to teach them to walk. In this very proscribed world, walking on hands and feet made nearly as much sense as walking upright.
-
Ditch the flowers, go with these cool Mother's Day gifts
Instead of buying your mom a generic gift for Mother’s Day like flowers or a day at the spa, here are some cool gadgets that won’t only surprise her, but perhaps perfectly match one of her hobbies or current needs.
-
Lexus IS C is sporty, luxurious
Compared with a more traditional Lexus, like the ES, it's absolutely thrilling. It's a car with some life and personality in it.
-
Have political parties lost their purpose?
The Democrats and Republicans may be worlds apart on most things, but at their headquarters just two blocks away from each other on Capitol Hill, each is confronting the same question: Have political parties lost their purpose?
-
Organic baby food more costly, not necessarily more nutritious
Squeezable pouches of organic baby food are as omnipresent on some American playgrounds as runny noses, diaper bags and overpriced strollers. But studies show that parents who are aiming to buy the best food for their infants may not need to spring for the expensive organics.
-
The top 10 most expensive places to get married
XO Group Inc., the creator of the top two wedding websites, TheKnot.com and WeddingChannel.com, released the results of its annual Real Weddings Study. This comprehensive report surveyed more than 17,500 US brides married in 2012.
-
Roller Derby players share shoulder microbes
Researchers have found that players come into a tournament bearing a team signature of bacteria on their shoulders-but leave sharing microbes with their opponents.
-
Why do goats yell like that?
If you're among the millions who have spent a significant portion of the past month watching videos of goats yelling like humans, you may have wondered: Why do goats yell like that? Are they distressed? Do they yell for any particular reason? Are they trying to tell us something?
-
VIDEO: Who could be the next pope?
Pope Benedict XVI's resignation opens the door to an array of possible successors. There's no clear front-runner, though several leading candidates have been mentioned over the years as papabile, or having the qualities of a pope.
- More Features Headlines
-
