it must be very, very hard to keep a face up this Holiday season in a town that suffered such a great unbelievable tragedy; all of us of all Faith's, say a prayer for the people of that town, especially the family's that lost their love ones,

I was thinking of the parents last night who had their dead children's stockings hung on the fireplace. Heart wrenching.

Hello folks, I agree that it was a dreadful and horrific experience that was perpetrated on the children, teachers and their loved ones. At a minimum we need to know the truth surrounding this tragic event. Let's not be blinded by fear but seek to put those responsible behind bars.

Sandy Hook massacre: Official story spins out of control

Posted on December 23, 2012by Jean

by Niall Bradley
Source: Veterans Today

The massacre of 20 children and 7 adults at the Sandy Hook elementary school last Friday was one more in a long line of atrocious mass murders committed in the USA. By now, five days later, an official version of events has more or less solidified to explain the chain of events. The familiar ‘lone gunman’ narrative has once more stoked the hot-button issue of gun control and left the general population as clueless as ever as to why people suddenly ‘go postal’ and target the most vulnerable members of society.

On closer inspection, however, there is clearly more to many of these mass shootings than meets the eye. Very often the earliest reports present information that directly contradicts key foundations of the final ‘official’ analysis of events. Granted, confusion is natural when a story breaks, but some of the initial reports conflict so completely with the lone gunman narrative that I’m going to compile them here and then try to put this tragedy in a more objective context. In his speech at the Sandy Hook Interfaith Prayer Vigil in Newtown, Connecticut on Sunday night, President Obama quoted the following biblical passage:

“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

~ 2 Corinthians 4:18

The traumatised Newtown community deserves the facts without the spin. Everyone touched by this brutal event deserves to know what really happened, so let’s fix our eyes on what remains unseen…

A 20-year-old ‘tech geek’ named Adam Lanza is supposed to have snapped early last Friday, December 14th, shot dead his mother Nancy Lanza, loaded her car up with her guns and ammo, then driven it across town to his former school, the Sandy Hook Elementary School, shot dead 27 people in two classrooms and an adjoining hallway, then turned one of his guns on himself.

That’s how most will now remember the shooting, but is that actually what happened?

All the child victims were first-graders between the ages of 6 and 7. If there’s any saving grace to be found in this event, it’s that it was all over within minutes. Police were reportedly on the scene “instantaneously”, according to Connecticut State Police Commander, Lt. Vance and by then the shooting had ended. Listed among the slain school teachers and administrative staff was the school principal, 47-year-old Dawn Hochsprung. Right here we encounter our first problem:

The Newtown Bee
December 14, 2012

Sandy Hook School Principal Dawn Hochsprung told The Bee that a masked man entered the school with a rifle and started shooting multiple shots – more than she could count – that went “on and on.”

© The Newtown Bee

How could the principal have survived to give this statement to local press describing what happened … if she was one of the first to be killed? Incidentally, The Newtown Bee‘s article was taken down on Monday December 17th. Of course, a plausible explanation is that a reporter mistook another teacher for the principal.

We were initially told that two handguns – a Glock and a Sig Sauer – were found next to the body of the dead shooter, while a third weapon, a .223-caliber rifle was also recovered “in the trunk of a car” later, in the school’s parking lot. All of the weapons were allegedly legally bought and registered in Nancy Lanza’s name. The car was later identified as a black Honda, also registered in her name. More weapons have since been introduced to the story but we’ll get back to those later on.

Besides anonymous ‘law enforcement officials’ telling the media that Adam Lanza was a former pupil at the school, they also said his mother was currently a teacher there, that she was found among the dead and that her son had specifically sought out her classroom first. But when it emerged that teaching staff at the school had never heard of a Nancy Lanza, it was suggested that she was a substitute teacher whose name therefore mightn’t appear on staff lists.

But this claim too has disappeared down the memory hole because it’s now known that Nancy had no connection with the school. Adam Lanza was in fact home-schooled. Nancy Lanza has since been painted as a “survivalist” who loved firearms, taught her sons how to shoot and was “stockpiling” because she was “worried about economic collapse.”

Daily Mail, UK
December 16, 2012

Last night it also emerged Nancy was a member of the Doomsday Preppers movement, which believes people should prepare for end of the world.

Her former sister-in-law Marsha said she had turned her home ‘into a fortress’. She added: ‘Nancy had a survivalist philosophy which is why she was stockpiling guns. She had them for defense.

‘She was stockpiling food. She grew up on a farm in New Hampshire. She was skilled with guns. We talked about preppers and preparing for the economy collapsing.’

It’s not difficult to see that their efforts to insinuate that Nancy Lanza was somehow responsible for this massacre by being an irresponsible mother also serve to rile the large contingent of gun owners in the country, particularly the far-right who see a conspiracy on the government’s part to “take back our guns.” More on that later, but for now I just want to note that all of the Lanza family members seemed to live more or less normal middle-class lives. Yes, the parents were divorced, but it was apparently amicable and both put their own needs second to those of their children (and anyway, divorce in the US these days is decidedly ‘normal middle class’).

Despite “family insiders” claiming that he was a “deeply disturbed kid”, Adam Lanza, like so many other alleged ‘lone(r) gunmen’ before him, does not fit the profile of a mass-murdering maniac. His 24-year-old brother, Ryan Lanza, said he hadn’t seen his brother since 2010. This fact brings into question Ryan’s claim that his younger brother may have had his identity card on his person at the school shooting. Although perhaps the question that needs to be asked here is, why would a person bother to carry identification with them after going to the trouble of dressing up in a bullet-proof vest, mask and black camouflage gear and going on a killing spree …

The live emergency services audio feed from the scene reveals some interesting observations from first responders that have been completely overlooked by the mainstream media. Note that the unedited version lasts over two hours, so the abridged version I’m going to quote from has a compressed sequence of events that are not in real time. In this abridged version, we hear at 1.38′ a report that gunfire is still being heard, even though the shooting was supposed to have ended by the time police arrived. The next report at 2.35′ says that the shooting has stopped and the school is “in lockdown”. At 3.23′, the police relay a teacher’s report that she saw “two shadows running past the gym”. This is followed by another officer on the scene who says, “Yeh, we got ‘em, they’re coming at me! … [inaudible] … coming up the driveway real slowly!” That same officer at 5.40′ says he has them “proned out”, which presumably means he has apprehended them and they are laid out on the ground, before another officer comes on to say, “be aware that we do have a second [inaudible] …”

Later on, at 19.10′, an officer who sounds out of breath, like he’s just given chase, reports what I think sounds like “these guys” followed certainly by “multiple weapons, including long rifles and shotgun”. If these were found so early on, why were they not included in the initial press reports which stated that three firearms had been found – the above mentioned Glock, Sig Sauer and Bushmaster AR-15 rifle? Further conflicting, and possibly planted evidence was thrown into the mix by ‘law enforcement officials’ when they published video footage of a long weapon being retrieved from the trunk of a car. Look closely and you’ll see that it’s a shotgun, not a rifle. In addition, this ‘discovery’ was made late in the day (it’s dark outside), while the Bushmaster rifle was first reported found “in the trunk of a car” much earlier in the day. This would logically suggest that the rifle and shotgun were found in the trunks of two different cars.

Besides the above two suspects “proned out” in front of the school, another suspected gunman was apprehended after he gave chase, this time in the woods next to the school:

YouTube – Veterans Today -

The police are clearly chasing someone whom they appear to apprehend in the middle of the woods next to the school, a fact confirmed by several eyewitnesses:

YouTube – Veterans Today -

This fleeing suspect, wearing camouflage gear, a bulletproof vest and armed with four guns, has since disappeared from media coverage. Who was this person and how did he know what “it” was when he protested that “I didn’t do it”?

Perhaps most astonishingly, this suspect arrested in the woods was named in an Associated Press report as 24-year-old Ryan Lanza. The original report has long since vanished of course, but you can see it referenced here. This was despite the fact that Ryan had already been named as the deceased suspect inside the school, lying next to two handguns.

Ryan Lanza was actually at work in Hoboken, New Jersey, that morning when his name and photo began circulating in the media. And so, for most of Friday, the ‘lone shooter’ was erroneously reported as “Ryan Lanza, confirmed dead.” At the same time, we were being told that Ryan’s girlfriend and a room-mate were reported missing, also from Hoboken, New Jersey.

So this isn’t just a case of mistaken identity, as later claimed when it was suggested that Adam had a piece of identification belonging to his brother on his person. Not one, but BOTH Lanza brothers were being placed by ‘law enforcement officials’ at the scene of the shooting. It could be that Ryan’s quick reflexes to leave his workplace to get on a bus to go back to his apartment while protesting innocence via his Facebook page may have saved his life.

Now remember, all of this confusion somehow resulted from a single guy going into a school and shooting children and teachers and then shooting himself, all within three to five minutes. Surely it should have been fairly easy to rapidly and concretely identify the details of such a crime and a rough layout of the scene?

What it’s starting to look like is that the Lanzas were framed for this mass shooting in advance. Long before any suspects were named, and even as we were being told that Nancy Lanza was among the dead at the school, we were told that police were investigating a murder in … Hoboken, New Jersey, where a body had been found at the home of … Ryan Lanza! An older “confirmed” version of events had RYAN, not Adam, travelling to Hoboken that morning to murder his father before going to the school in Newtown, Connecticut. Other variants had Ryan OR Adam going to both their divorced parents’ homes and killing them before going to the school.

The narrative has now settled on the younger brother killing his mother in Newtown then going to the school. So what about the rest of it? Do we just put it down to ‘keen’ journalism that was having a field day last Friday as media outlets sought to bring us the latest ‘breaking news’? Confusion and ‘Chinese whispers’ undoubtedly play a part in the early stages of national media events, but I think back to those news anchors reading scripts about Osama Bin Laden within minutes of the first plane being hit on 9/11 and I think, ‘Wait a minute!’ All these misleading reports had to have been issued by someone or some people “confirming” to Associated Press and other media outlets that the Ryans’s father had been murdered [he wasn't even aware that the shooting at the school had taken place until journalists turned up on his doorstep], or that Ryan’s girlfriend had gone missing from Hoboken, or that either Ryan or Adam were pulled out of the adjacent woods in handcuffs yelling “I DIDN’T DO IT” to assembled parents. These aren’t just ‘little details’ that can be confused for other details, these are detailed narratives. So how, or why, would any member of the press come up with such details? They strike me as a set of alternative scenarios that might have found their way into the official narrative had facts on the ground turned out differently.

Watch this snippet of State Police Lt. Paul Vance at the press conference he gave the day after the shootings. His answer is as bizarre as it is revealing. When asked whether Nancy Lanza had any connection with the school, he replied defensively about something that is both unrelated and arguably the most significant fact that completely undermines the official narrative: the arrest of a second gunman in the woods:

YouTube – Veterans Today -

Most of the initial mainstream media reports have since been rewritten to fit ‘new’ facts proclaimed by ‘law enforcement officials’. Here’s an example from Business Insider. The following excerpts are the opening paragraphs from the ‘same’ article, one earlier original version, followed by the later revised version:

The massacre [...] was reportedly perpetrated with a .233 caliber rifle, a Glock pistol and a Sig Sauer pistol.

The Bushmaster rifle was found in the trunk of the shooter’s car. The Sig Sauer and Glock pistols were the only weapons used in the shooting, according to CBS. Now the question is what kind of magazine would allow a shooter to fire “100″ rounds in such a short period.

Indeed, I was wondering the same thing. How could two pistols do so much damage? The report was updated as follows:

The massacre in Connecticut that’s taken the lives of at least 26 people was reportedly perpetrated with a .223 caliber rifle, a Glock pistol and a Sig Sauer pistol, according to NBC:

The shooter was using one Sig Sauer and one Glock pistol, according to CNN. Later details emerged that the primary weapon was the Bushmaster “assault-style” rifle.

Altogether, though, it doesn’t matter what type of weapon the shooter used. The bottom line is that it was likely a magazine fed, semi-automatic, with enough rounds to shoot “100 shots” in a matter of minutes, as quoted in USA Today.

What actually happened may not matter to some, but surely a journalist’s role is to at least try to find out?

The three guns Adam Lanza is supposed to have brought to the school with him. © New York Daily News. The rifle was left in the trunk, leaving ‘Adam Lanza’ just the two handguns to let off “hundreds of rounds”… firing .233 caliber bullets that belonged to the rifle… which was left in the car

This Associated Press/Newsday article on Saturday, December 15th, reported that “Only the rifle was used on the victims“, a statement that is supported by Dr. H. Wayne Carver II, Connecticut state’s chief medical examiner. Of the seven autopsies he personally performed on Sandy Hook victims, all of them had “three to 11 wounds apiece”. He also said that the ‘gunman’ used a military-style rifle rigged to quickly reload, and that the ‘shooter’ was able to reload so quickly because he had “taped two magazines together.” Even before the State Chief Medical Examiner had given these statements, it had been stated that spent shell casings from .233-caliber (rifle) bullets were found inside the school.

So all the victims’ wounds were the result of rifle-fire, specifically from “the rifle”, the one we were told in early reports was found in the trunk of a car in the parking lot! This is simply not credible.

Remember that only “the rifle” was used on all the victims. If only this rifle was used, and if we try to make this claim fit into the (admittedly fluid) official version of events, then the alleged lone gunman would have had to leave the school, place the rifle back in his trunk, then return inside the school and shoot himself. No one reported any such maneuver on the part of any gunman or gunmen. What we do have, however, is live emergency services radio feed in which we hear that two men have been apprehended and are “proned out” AND live video footage supported by eyewitness testimony showing what appears to be a THIRD man being arrested by police in the woods.

We can see how the authorities’ hands are tied because they need to fit all the facts into the usual ‘lone gunman’ narrative. For that, there can only be ONE rifle and a couple of handguns. The problem is that they have already claimed to find that solitary Bushmaster rifle in the trunk of a car in the school parking lot, so the earliest police reports of a cache of long arms being found inside the school will no longer fit with the lone gunman narrative, especially as they’re now saying that he had already opened fire as he burst into the school.

Could “scrawny” 20-year-old Adam Lanza have stormed the school, solo Rambo-style, while carrying “multiple long arms, including rifles and shotguns”? Only one person was wounded. Everyone else who was shot was killed. How could Adam Lanza achieve such deadly accuracy, in such a short length of recorded time?

Initial reports put the beginning of the shooting in the school administrators’ office, where someone, reportedly the school principal, had a confrontation with the gunman(men). We know this because someone supposedly turned on the school intercom system, alerting the teaching staff to the loud swearing and commotion in the principal’s office and probably saving many more children from being gunned down as teachers took measures to hide the children in closets.

Similarly heavily armed men wearing black combat gear from head to toe… their job is to kill ‘terrorists’ to keep us safe, which they do by terrorising us all

One brave teacher, Kaitlin Roig, bundled a bunch of children into a bathroom and locked the door. What’s interesting about her testimony to ABC News is that when police arrived and asked her to open the door, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/14/kaitlin-roig-newtown-elementary-teacher_n_2303985.html">she refused, saying that “if they were really cops, they’d know where to find keys to open the door.” In addition, she requested that they slide their badges under the door.

Now, this is generally a smart thing to do in any and all interactions with the police, especially in the U.S. But to have the wherewithal to do so under such traumatic circumstances strongly suggests that Ms. Roig had logically deduced by that point that multiple perpetrators were involved, and that they were either impersonating police officers or were indistinguishable from SWAT team police commandos, either in the way they dressed or the way they behaved upon entering the building. It also reminds us just how narrow the time window of the actual shooting was. The shooting appears to have barely ended when men knocked on that bathroom door and told Ms. Roig they were police.

There are also conflicting reports about how the gunmen entered the building. We were told initially that they came in through the main front entrance and proceeded straight to the administrators’/principal’s offices. But Sandy Hook elementary school has a security system with a video monitor, which allows staff to screen visitors before buzzing them in. A “masked gunman dressed in black tactical combat gear” from head to toe would kinda raise red flags, don’t you think?

Another possible anomaly is that Victoria Soto, one of the teachers killed at the school, appears to have had an ‘in memoriam’ Facebook page created in her name four days before the shooting.

Regarding this alleged ‘LIBOR scandal’ connection between this shooting and the Aurora theater shooting, there is as yet zero evidence to support the claim that either father of Lanza or Holmes were going to testify to anyone about anything, so for now this must remain just another rumor. I rather think that this is being spread to create the impression of a direct link that can be easily refuted, as in a straw man argument. The obvious and direct link staring everyone in the face is that the official accounts of these events are hocus-pocus. The glaring connection between these two shootings, the Sikh Temple shooting and the Fort Hood shooting is that multiple gunmen were reported at the time by eyewitnesses, but they are now all officially claimed to have been carried out by ‘lone gunmen’. This logically tells us that the real perpetrators are being protected with cover stories of what really happened because if the truth were known, some section of the U.S. government would be implicated.

Wade Michael Page, the ‘lone gunman’ in the Sikh Temple shooting in Wisconsin in August this year, was a highly decorated U.S. army psychological operations specialist, according to the Pentagon. But what happened to the three other gunmen seen by witnesses? It can’t surely be coincidence that Wade was (former?) military psy-ops. The thought has crossed my mind more than once during the aftermath of the Connecticut shooting. Others too have suggested this was a ‘false-flag’ event, or that Lanza was some sort of Manchurian Candidate.

But maybe there’s a simpler explanation (albeit more outrageous) than that? Was that really Adam Lanza they found inside the school? Do we even know for a fact that one of the gunmen was found dead inside the school? What we have instead are reports of two or three masked gunmen, apparently all dressed similarly in black tactical gear from head to toe, being wilfully forgotten about at best, or protected by the Federal Government at worst. Based on the authorities’ persistent but futile efforts to connect the Lanzas to this school, the multiple eyewitness reports of two shooters, the Connecticut State Medical Examiner’s report that all the victims were riddled with bullets from a rifle that we’re simultaneously being asked to believe was in the trunk of a car the whole time, similar reports of multiple shooters in previous mass shootings in recent years and the media focusing the emotional outcry onto the hot-button topic of gun control … I’m left wondering if this was actually the work of some highly trained professional hit team?

Was the massacre at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, a psy-op, using what amounts to a ‘death squad’ and a carefully planned mission to terrorise people on behalf of the government, in combination with perception management to shape the narrative and vector the emotional fallout?

Gun control isn’t really the issue here. Control – period – is the issue. The U.S. government would long since have taken measures, quietly, to limit the supply of weapons, the 2nd Amendment of the constitution be damned (it’s “just a goddamned piece of paper“, remember?), if it was really concerned with limiting civilian access to weapons. That we’ve seen gun sales increase in the last few days to the point where Wal-Mart is all out of assault rifles is wholly unsurprising.

The psychopaths in power have absolutely no compunction about using state terrorism, in this case organising the deliberate massacre of innocent children, to control people. In effect, this is little different from what the U.S. government calls counter-insurgency or counter-terrorism in foreign countries, where it attacks innocent civilians to create the impression that they were killed by ‘communists’, ‘terrorists’, ‘insurgents’ or ‘militants’, with the aim of generating public support for the illusion that the common people need a strong, ruthless government to protect them from the ‘evil-doers’. When the common people buy into this manipulation, the end result, as history shows repeatedly, is an overt and brutal police state.

Sorry Trust, but we are commenting about an article entitled "Newtown takes a break from mourning". I don't think your text discusses this particular article. With all due respect, it doesn't seem like the appropriate time or place for this argument.

Hello optimistic, if not now then when, after the next criminal shooting? The sooner the truth is exposed and fresh in the public's mind the sooner we will stop future murders. You don't have to take this BS, you can do something about it.

I just think that there are other articles more suitable for your post. You are certainly entitled to your opinion, whether I agree with it or not. Have a good evening.

Trust, I'm sure you can find some help tomorrow. Your diatribe is nonsense.

I find the title of this article pretty offensive. As a parent I think that waking up Christmas morning with someone missing from the family would be terrible. I think saying a town is "taking a break from grieving for Christmas" is a very generalized and inappropriate thing to say. Grief is a very personal thing and is not something that goes away at the same time for everybody. I can see that the author was going for a 'hopeful outlook' around a Christ centered holiday, but what an awful title for the article.

I think you people who don't like this need to calm down a little bit. It's called journalism. It can be disgusting, but you just have to deal with it:

KTB24, #1.8- I TOTALLY agree with you about your sentiment of waking up Christmas morning with someone missing from the Family and think you really began to nail it, where the Media hasn't been able to. And especially where they've gone "missing" to. The picture above of the cemetary and the cold hard ground where they now are just tells it all for me. DEVASTATING! How many Parents maybe wanted to spend the night right on top of the grave or crawl right into it? One of the little girls looked just like my Grandaughter at that age. I, myself, personally feel so DEVASTATED by it (if I think about it, but I'm lucky that I have a choice to be able to "not think about it"), but these Parents DON'T! I had to watch and endure my own Mother losing 2 of her children (young adults) and by pretty much "natural" causes and it was shocking and DEVASTATING to her and I will NEVER FORGET the heart wrenching wailing and pain that obviously subsided , over time, but never went away for her. And her Children were young adults and by natural causes, not anywhere close to this, only 6 and 7 years old and in the hands of ABSOLUTE TERROR like that! (and all because "they went to school" that day!!!) How many will beat themselves up and kick the living sh!t out of themselves because they sent their little One to school that day???? Like they "wished they'd know" or somehow "they should have known". (It's not rational, BUT, their Grief is NOT RATIONAL! in any way!!!) AND, that irrationality is and always will be "INESCAPABLE" FOR THEM!

On a lighter note, because I can't take anymore, for today; I watched the Vigil and thought the MOST BEAUTIFUL Moment, exquistely captured was when the camera zoomed in on the perfectly clear glass containers with a lit tealight in each against the dark background. No words being spoken, I just thought it was ASTOUNDINGLY BEAUTIFUL , as the "unspeakable" and I pull that image back into my mind (at a time like now when I have to stop thinking about it; the DEVASTATION and pain to those Families).

There's a great W.H. Auden Poem that captures heart-wrenchingness related to Death (albeit not by TERROR, though) that talks about "put away the Ocean and dismantle the Sun and pack up the Moon", so forth because they're no longer needed. I'm trying to find it to post somewhere.

I was hoping to see some mention of the Native American school children who survived the mass killing at the Red Lake Reservation school in 2005 in Minnesota who went to spend time with the Newton parents.

The survivors of the Columbine massacre did this for them and they felt it went a long way to helping them heal.

I will never understand why this news site refuses to publish anything of a positive nature that deals with Native Americans. There is absolutely no excuse for this one, when anything and everything about Newton is in the media.

As someone has already said, Christmas will never be the same for this town, for these parents. All our tears, all the nation's grief, will not fill the empty space in the hearts that are missing the laughter and smiles of these children. Maybe knowing that others care will be some small comfort.

Pastor, I agree with you completely. There is no way these people are taking a break from their grief and loss. What is this reporter thinking. How sad.

True. For the parents, it will be a struggle to get through the day without coming unglued too many times. On top of that, many others won't understand what the parents are going through and how painful it is and how little words can help. Then there with be those who will become impatient when the grieving doesn't end in a rather short time. Even at work, they will crack a few times a day while at their desk. The struggle can go on for months and months, and some may need professional help. I recall a woman who had lost her son and was still having serious problems a year later or more later (I don't remember for sure).They can be happy again, but I would expect some pain now and then; I don't see how there could not be, and I see it as, IMO, appreciate and not as abnormal. I know these things from my own experience, but the death of a child wasn't involved and I'd expect the parents would be hit even harder than I was -- much harder.

BTW, something that helped me was buying a book about the grieving process (I had become worried about what was going on with me). I learned from it that, as bad and strange as it was, I was in the normal range. It also clued me in on some things to avoid, like "shrine building."

I agree MelJM. This will be a life long process of grief that will change in many different ways as time goes by. I think grief is a very personal and individual experience and people will all grieve differently. We just need to respect their individuality. People do what they need to do. What works for one person may not work for someone else. The loss of a child is so devastating. It's unnatural as we are not supposed to bury our children. It's out of order with the life cycle. These parents are going to need a great deal of support. I have buried two children and have met many many grieving parents during the years. This is a long hard journey.

Your right Pastor 65,

I was thinking about the parents, family, and friends of all those murdered. Can you imagine looking at the gifts you bought your child or loved one so close to Christmas thinking about the joy it would bring them and eating dinner with them and enjoying their company? I dare say my wife and I would be destroyed if this happened to us. There would be no "break", and I bet that there is no "break" for these poor families. I am fortunate to have my wife and 18 year old son with me today, and my heart aches for those in Newtown.

The media still hasn't left town obviously- not until they've milked every last ounce of dignity they can get out of a town in mourning.

You know as well as I that nobody ever said that healing from a tragedy such as that would be easy, Pastor. Some if not many of the affected families will eventually heal, but it's a process; it takes time. You never completely get over the death of a loved one, whether from a mass murder (or a murder in general) or natural causes or whatever.

True, pastor65, and I can hardly blame anybody directly affected to not celebrate Christmas this year, but read comment #3; I think that that comment says it all.

Pastor, you mentioned, "Gifts under the tree that will never be unwrapped by their child." I would certainly hope that the neighbors and friends of these families would ensure that there would be no gifts under the trees for the deceased children. It would be cruel if they weren't at least thoughtful enough to remove those presents (if the parents had not already removed them).

MelJM mentioned buying a book on grieving. Now to me, that would be an incredibly thoughtful present for these parents. I wouldn't give one for Christmas, but perhaps after the first of the year. There are five distinct stages of grief, and when one recognizes them, it is easier to cope. Two books that I would particularly recommend--both by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross--are:

On Death and Dying

On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief through the Five Stages of Loss (co-Authored by David Kessler)

The first book is a classic, and the second looks like it may well become one. Another book, On life After Death, also by Kubler-Ross, looks very promising from what I've heard, but I haven't actually read this one.

I hope this information will help someone.

Kirigami, thank you for posting info on the Kubler-Ross books; they're beautiful and offer so much comfort after losing a loved one.

My heart and prayers go out to all the families affected by such an incredibly sad event.

Kiragami, you are wrong about the Christmas presents. If you haven't lost a child over the Christmas holidays then you don't know. I hope you never do know. And to say it would be cruel to have presents under the tree for those children is wrong. What is right is whatever those parents choose to do. For some, having presents will be the right thing to do. Anything else would be wrong. Their child will always be their child. Removing gifts will not remove their memory. Not for one second. Nor will not saying their name as so many friends and family will do, their thinking being that if they say the child's name then it will remind the parents, perhaps make them cry. When in reality, their child never left their mind. When in reality, that parent's tears would likely just make the other person uncomfortable. When in reality, not speaking that child's name makes them the elephant in the room. Just as removing their Christmas presents would be for many of those parents. So, I would certainly hope that friends and family would never take it upon themselves to do something like that. That is what would be cruel.

Well said, and so true thank you A.Commentator, if more people like you would have the spunk to speak God's truth ,not man made religious perspective... The world has forgotten who God, is. I am not talking about man made rules. If we all read in !1 Cor. 10 :31 Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do , do it all to the Glory if God. So simple.....We need to uplift one another, love,be kind to one another ,As Christ has loved/love, and forgiven us....

"Amen," is all I can say to that. In fact, that comment SAYS IT ALL.

OH!, MAN!!!!, you talk about talking truth to power!

Even if you don't celebrate Jesus as I don't there is a way to heal. I don't buy all this Jesus stuff or the "in a better place" philosophy. I think your post is very ethnocentric Christian. All people regardless of faith deserve the same consideration. There was a Jewish boy among the dead. Is it any different for him?

David- Jesus was Jewish. He came to save us all from the death of sin.

Do you have to believe in Jesus to be saved from sin?

A. Commentator, just a heads up: please don't ever tell a parents that whose child has been killed that they are in a better place. Are you prepared to choose one of your children right now to send to there? If you only have one child, then the decision should be easy. If you would not do that, then don't say it. Don't tell a parent that. It is one of the most unhelpful statements that is said to a grieving parent. Although we know our children and happy and doing well in Heaven, there is NO BETTER PLACE then here with us. NONE. A parent is not supposed to bury their child. And Mary would tell you that, that I can promise you. And btw, God also did not need another angel. God gives us Free Will. When someone uses that Free Will for evil, He cries along with us. Statements like that you made help you. Not us. Google it.

Yes, Merry Christmas to you, Newtown, CT. May all of you--directly and indirectly affected--experience healing and comfort in the time of sorrow that you're going through this holiday season, of all times.

Well said!

I can't imagine having to bury a child. I'm very sorry for your losses

Thank you WSU. That's very nice of you. One thing that always touches my heart is the number of strangers who are so caring and wonderful. We hear of so much tragedy in life, but we mustn't forget that most people are good and kind and caring.

I am a man, and I have known great pain. Somehow I think that no one knows pain like that of a mother for her lost child. I am sorry that you lost your children. I know you miss them no less now than you did over twenty years ago. I hope God holds you in his hands this Christmas day, and comforts you for the rest of your life, and beyond.

God bless you.

MK,

Thanks so much for your kindness. After all these years, my husband and I still have our difficult moments, but we have learned to create a new normal and go on with our lives. This has taken a very long time. These parents have a long hard road ahead of them because grief is a process and it cannot be rushed. Even the parents of the adults who were murdered will be experiencing many of the same emotions as those whose very young children have been lost. It doesn't matter how old our kids are, they are still our children. Your words are very comforting. Thanks again for your kindness. I wish you and your family a Merry Christmas.

Optimistic, I am so sorry for the loss of your children. A parent shouldn't have to go through the excruciating pain of the loss of one child, certainly not two. I have known too many now that have also. When you lose a child your address book becomes filled with other parents who are walking in your shoes, who live your new normal. I lost my son, my only child, over Christmas six years ago - and yesterday - to a drunk driver. The crash on 12/21 and he died on 12/29, so Christmas week is when I watched him die. He was a senior in college, home for Christmas break. That is what Christmas is for me now. When my child died. My heart is with all of these parents in Newtown. The ones that that lost their little ones and the ones that lost their children in their 20's. They were still so young. Their parents are grieving just as much. All that lost. There is not a good age to lose a child. There is not a "better" age. And a sudden, violent death makes the worse loss that much harder. No goodbyes. Plus you weren't there to protect your child. Even though you know it wasn't your fault, it was out of your control and as a mom, in your heart you are supposed to protect your child. And that never leaves you. This is not even the hardest time for them as awful as it is. It gets worse. The 2nd year is the worst. Reality really sets in. They have a long, hard journey ahead. You don't move on, you move through. Their address books will change. It is one step forward and two steps back so often. But, I hope they feel their child with them. It's not the same but it helps. I know it helps me knowing my son is by my side. All of these families are in my thoughts and will continue to be in the years to come.

huh?

No, the media is not the problem. The "media" did not cause this catastrophe, violence did. And that violence is aided and abetted by an insane gun culture in this nation. Proof of which is that we are 5% of the world's poplation yet we possess a full 50% of the world's firearms.

Pointing out that the weapon was a "military style" weapon merely points out the reason for the amount of carnage a madman is capable of inflicting in just a few short minutes. Had he a conventional bolt action hunting rife or even an "assault" weapon with a ten round magazine, chances are that quite a few of these kids would have survived this nightmare. The fact that there were practically no wounded spotlights how hideously effective this kind of firearm can be. Normally when you have dozens of people shot there are some surviviors who are merely wounded. Not in this case.

And please, don't respond with the "guns don't kill people" crap or "when guns our outlawed, then I'll be an outlaw" nonsense. Just because guns are legal does not mean they cannot be regulated and needlessly lethal types banned or heavily regulated. I live two towns over from Newtown, know it well, and have friends who live there. My neighbor is a cop in Newtown who was one of the first on the scene. Go ask him how he feels about killing machines like this. Timothy Mcveigh who blew up the Murrah building in Oklahma City was raging against "Big Goverment" and said his favorite slogan was the "when guns are outlawed....." idiocy.

The school principle lived right here in my town. She used to be the school principle for our high school. We had a huge wake for her and she was buried the other day. Ask her family how they feel about the flood of quasi military weapons which are now flooding the market. It's going to be a hell of long time before anyone in this area forgets about this nightmare.

I am so sorry for the losses that you and your neighbors have endured. You make some excellent points in your comments. May you somehow find a sense of peace at this most blessed time of year. I am praying for all of you.

There's still much to be learned about the Sandy Hook tragedy. There will be many more articles written and they will contain a brief review of the essentials. Some are upset that, even after only a short time since one of the worst events in modern American history, msnbc is still publishing articles about it. Some are concerned about what they see as NBC's gun control agenda. Evidently, having a story about guns killing the kids, is not something they want fed into the gun control debate. For my part, although I really doubt that banning guns for self-defense is the right way to go, I'm thinking the whole thing through again from scratch, which I see as trying to reconcile the need for objective rules for the retaliatory use of force by the government with peoples right to self-defense. At this point, I don't see how we can have (generally) objective rules for the retaliative use of force and, at the same time, treat guns just like any other consumer purchase. That's as far as I've gotten. Anyway, there are some tough issues in here and you can contribute only by thinking these through and presenting your worked out arguments. Bashing the media is completely worthless for your position -- completely.

I'm not understanding "retaliatory use of force by the government"-- what does that have to do with banning assault weapons, or requiring more information about the gun owner?

I don't have a gun, and don't care to be around them, but support one's right to have a rifle for hunting or a gun for protecting your home/family. My favorite idea is that insurance should be required (just like for cars) for each gun. Just like we pay for uninsured motorists, those that have guns can cover those that are uninsured.

I TOTALLY agree on the gun insurance comment,However i doubt that it would help to controlthe MISuse of them.....

United WeStand,

The retaliatory use of force is force used to retaliate (capture, jail, maybe shoot) those who have already initiated the use of force, are a threat of doing so, or have used fraud -- a form of stealing.

What I'm looking at is the idea that guns in private hands, for protection, is a kind of police deputy function. You would not only protect yourself but your family members, guests, and perhaps even neighbors. The police wouldn't hire a felon cop and give him a gun, so neither should a private felon be able to get one: same for other types of crime and mental instability. The perspective is to get the retaliatory use of force under rational control throughout the country and to move guns for personal protection under that it too.

I haven't looked at semi-automatics from the above perspective. Off-hand, I don't see a need for AR15 type weapons or worse. One of the very few ideas I've seen (there's a lot of emotion now, but few proposals to study) would have hunting rifles checked in and out of an authorized business. Maybe the same thing could work for AR15s (if they're not banned completely). Go to the shooting range, check out an SR15, play with it for awhile, then check it back in. I've not bought the check-in/check-out idea yet but it looks interesting.

Off-hand again, I'd think there would need to be rules about gun transfer. All the background checks in the world are futile if someone can just sell a gun to a neighbor without, at least, reporting it.

Anyway, I'm looking for a way to reconcile the need for rules in the retaliatory use of force and the right of self-defense. At this point, I strongly suspect that the only path that can work is via regulation. As I said, I don't think guns can be viewed as just another consumer product. I think most would agree with this but I'm trying to start from basics.

I don't own a gun and would rather not have one in my apartment, but I can think of situations where I'd seriously consider getting one.

I'm hoping people will settle down and think about the issues and come up with ideas. As it stands now, the "debate" is pathetic; all sides need to sharpen their arguments.

True; I know about that, although I haven't lost a child.

I haven't had "a little levity" since Sandy Hook. I know I'll be ok, but some of those little faces come back into my head and I hurt yet again. The worst comes from remembering one of the girls who, according to her parents, "carefully thought things out and planed everything." Thinking things out is a moral virtue for me, so she naturally drew my attention.

What?

A bunch of ridiculous pious prattle -- total pathetic drivel! I'm an atheist with a completely secular philosophy and ethics; I love man and this world and freedom. Man has a fallible cognitive faculty and can be very right or very wrong in his conclusions. Thus comes man's capacity for greatness or for evil -- a capacity that animals don't have. Man is a being of self-made soul and is not sinful by nature, but is, instead, an unintended but, nevertheless, great and wonderful achievement of nature.

One can't put ice in a gas tank and expect to travel anywhere. In the same way, one can't fill one's head full of arbitrary faith based nonsense (or any other kind of nonsense) and expect to lead the best life possible. The truth matters. Let's move forward in this; we'll be better off. Never ever accept the idea that you should be punished just because you don't believe the contents of a book -- any book. Books are not primary; only existence is primary. Religious faith is a well known invalid approach to gaining knowledge, a functional cognitive disorder, and a moral vice.

I believe in God. Albert Einstein was much smarter than me, and he believed in God. It was he who said, "The world is not a dangerous place because of men who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing".

MK-7179421,

No he didn't; at least not in any concept that a Christian would even begin to recognize.

He thought the Jewish religion just childish superstition; the Bible, a book of childish primitive legends; no immortality; ethics, a human concern with no supernatural authority behind it; a personal god, not something to take seriously; ....

Here's a list of Einstein quotes on the specific subject. Albert Einstein Quotations.

Reading it, you will have a much better idea of Einstein's views.

If one doesn't judge lest he be judged and he loves his enemy, the only benefit from this goes to evil.

If you insist in looking to authority for a sanction for your belief, look at Isaac Newton. Surely as great a mind as Einstein's. But really, accepting an authority over your own mind should never be done.

If you want to take back your mind, you might try reading "Godless" by a former deeply evangelical preacher Dan Barker. A more philosophically rich book is "Atheism: The Case Against God" by George H. Smith. Both are at amazon and both are have a Kindle edition. I promise that neither of these books will threaten you with eternal punishment if you don't agree with them. Eternal: a trillion trillion years just for starters.

You should not have posted this... not here.... not now.

jus4jas,

So sorry for your loss. I too have buried two children. My son was 16 and my daughter was a baby. We lost them within 11 months of each other. It takes a very long time to come to terms with this type of loss. Although the headline is offensive, I think that people just need to be educated, as the reporter just suffers from ignorance. For those that haven't suffered such a loss, it is hard to comprehend the depth of the grief. I do find many of the posts here extremely heartfelt and sensitive. I think we have all been impacted by this horrific act of violence. I will keep you and your son in prayer and hope that you are able to find a sense of peace.