Sandy Hook tragedy: No easy answers

On December 14, a small town in Connecticut was the scene of an unthinkable tragedy. A heavily armed, believed to be mentally ill young man forced his way into an elementary school and killed as many teachers and children as he could find. There are no words to describe our horror.

And as always, in the aftermath of the killings, the analysis and the finger pointing begin. What caused this? Was it too many guns? Was it not enough guns? Was it mental illness, or poor school security? Is it his mother's fault, or society's, or his alone? And most of all, what can we do to avert the next school shooting?

More details about the shooter and his motive remain to be uncovered.

Authorities are trying to recover information from the shooter's damaged computer hard drive and hopefully find more clues to his state of mind, according to various news reports.

Few towns are as sensitive to school security as Moses Lake. The events in Newtown shook us to the core as we recalled our own school shooting. But the easy answers are seldom the best answers, and it would be worse than useless to go off half-cocked, as it were.

At a recent press conference, Wayne LaPierre, head of the National Rifle Association, suggested that the solution is to place armed guards in every school. While we're reluctant to hoot down LaPierre as so many news media do, his solution creates many questions. Who pays for these guards? Are we talking about minimum-wage mall cops, military members or full-fledged police? Our budget barely stretches to hot lunches and textbooks as it is.

At the other end of the spectrum are those calling for gun restrictions. Besides the glaring constitutional issue, this too is unworkable. No deranged killer ever stopped and said to himself, "I'd better not have this gun, because it's against the law." Everything the Connecticut shooter did was already against the law. It didn't stop him in the least.

And that's the bottom line. If we could prevent tragedies like Sandy Hook with legislation, we'd do it in a heartbeat. But there is no law we can pass that will magically eliminate the remote possibility of a mass shooting. We mourn with the people of Newtown, Conn. We hug our own children a little closer and thank God for police and teachers willing to lay their lives on the line for them. We support the local schools, both public and public, for being cognizant of the tragedy and aware of the importance of keeping students and teachers safe. And we work little by little to make ours a safer and more tight-knit community.

We feel like we need to do something, but we shouldn't be taking drastic steps just to feel better. There are no one-size-fits-all answers to a tragedy like Sandy Hook. Let's not lose our heads trying to manufacture them.

~ Editorial Board