Tragedy brings us together

The recent massacre in Connecticut on Friday has been everywhere - from Newspapers to social media to nearly every television channel.  It started with "I can't believe this," then "be thankful for your family and the time you have together." Now, it's become a debate over gun control.  But are guns really the problem? This is one of the many recent domestic attacks that have taken place in the past decade, the general consensus that school shootings began with the Columbine massacre in 1999, the Red Lake massacre in 2005, the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007, and even the Colorado movie theater massacre early this year should be counted (though it didn't take place in a school, it was still a domestic act of violence resulting in a major loss of lives).  Everyone is either blaming guns or re-quoting "guns don't kill people; people kill people."

I firmly believe in the power of education, and that with knowledge comes acceptance.  We may not know why these people committed these terrible acts, but perhaps it was synonymous with the reason our suicide rates are so high right now.  People are going through issues that they haven't been taught how to handle, whether it's discrimination based on sexuality, victimized by bullying, depression or psychotic disorders, or anything else; no matter whether it is any of these reasons, or something else, these aren't things we are taught about in school.  They teach us to be nice to everyone and to help our friends who are sad, but they don't teach us what to do when we're the victims.  Most of these issues are taboo to talk about, even to our closest friends.

Maybe the problem in our culture is guns, maybe it's a lack of education; maybe it's even both.  But no matter what has caused these tragedies, thousands of people are personally affected.  They bring our nation together to mourn for the victims and reach out to their families, to appreciate our own families and recall that our time on earth is short.  We shouldn't need something like this for us all to agree.