December 14, 2012, such a tragic day, and one that has stayed with me for the nine years since.

By happenstance, I arose early that very same morning to launch my first writing effort with regard to the Second Amendment, one spurred by my realization that the Amendment was one of three serious conceptual mistakes made by our vaunted but human Founding Fathers. 

Validating slavery was one.  So much for the Declaration of Independence’s “all men are created equal”; so much for the Constitution’s twenty year provision in Article 1, Section 9 allowing the slave trade to continue through 1808, levying a “Tax or duty…on such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person”.

The fact that the civil rights movement was necessary a century after the Civil War, and that the fifty years since the centennial anniversary of Gettysburg were marked by necessary struggle to free the country from Jim Crow laws and at times brutal mistreatment of minorities bothered me greatly.

The second mistake, denying the vote to women nationwide, necessitated more than a century of political struggle and further confirmed that our hallowed Constitution was flawed from the get go.

And so I sat down at 0630 to put down some initial thoughts on the incoherently written Second Amendment and its twisted manipulation since the late 1970s by the “out of my cold dead hands” ideologues.  Their decades’ long concerted campaign to arm the population, including with military grade firearms, had led to such tragic events as Columbine in 1999 and Aurora just months previous and I felt such a constant sadness and frustration.

An hour or so later, my wife came by my desk to ask mournfully, “have you heard?”.  My perplexed look drew the details out, that an active shooter had wreaked havoc and death at an elementary school in Connecticut.  I sat stunned and was incredibly sad and moved by the news.  How could such a thing happen?  How will the families cope and come to terms with their unfathomable loss?  What kind of country allows military grade weaponry to such murderous effect among the general population? Why, why, why?

As we remember the victims of Sandy Hook, and their families, today and every day, we must re-dedicate ourselves to righting this egregious wrong in our country. 

My meager contribution will be, hopefully, this push for a thoughtful and productive discussion on amending the Second Amendment to make it a sensible and coherent part of the Constitution and to prevent it from becoming even more of what it is today, a license for wide ranging gun violence depriving fellow Americans of life and liberty, one that takes such a painful and costly toll on our society.

Thoughts and prayers may be enough for some, but for the rest of us, we need to work and to do our part to end the insanity, to respect the wishes of a majority of Americans who favor background checks, firearms licensing and training, red flag laws, and an end to commonly available military grade weaponry and ammunition. 

To the parents and families of Sandy Hook victims and community, we are forever with you in your pain, and we are striving to bring some meaningful positive change to help make up in such a small part for your deep loss.

May God bless America and make it a better country by curbing the senseless gun violence that so damaged our country and society today.