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As of this writing, 27 people are dead in Connecticut. 20 elementary aged children, and 7 adults from the reports. And all day long I've been trying to reconcile with myself how such a thing comes to pass, and for what possible reason.

Unfortunately the circus will now begin.

The media frenzy of reactions, declarations, brokenhearted pleas from those who've lost people they love. For weeks now, details will trickle out about the killer... His friends and family... his situation... the hows and whys of this. And we will devour it... through the Internet, television, and radio. We will watch and listen and read day and night.

And in a month, it will be over, and forgotten. Until it happens again. And during the media frenzy for the next event, it will be mentioned again as a comparison. As in the number of victims for the next mass murder will be compared to the number of victims from this one.

Left wingers will call for more gun control. Right wingers will call for more guns. One side or the other will offer the usual "bad parenting" excuse. Someone will say that we no longer teach family values in this country, and that if the shooter just had a little more Jesus in his life, everything would have been okay. The arguments will persist. Nothing will change.

I am not a parent. A part of me thinks I'd probably be pretty good at it. Another part of me isn't so sure. But I know that if I had a child this evening I would probably be researching home schooling options. Because, sadly, this could happen anywhere to anyone. But we cant be afraid can we? Because then the murderer wins, or the terrorist wins, or Satan wins. Some evil bastard wins if you are affected by this, got it? But we are affected.

Go about your lives they say. Nothing to see here. The president says "Take meaningful action to prevent this." Exactly what meaningful action is there to take? A bunch of school children were stabbed in China a few days ago. It might be kind of tough to regulate guns, and sharp objects too. And if we take away sharp objects, well blunt objects work too.

The sad fact of the matter is that the people who decide to do these things have given up on life. And there are not always warning signs. There are not always meaningful actions to be taken against those who are simply broken inside. They aren't afraid of punishment, or negative consequences because they've already decided they are not getting out of this alive. And they are happy about that. They will inflict one final, unfathomable, unhealable wound. And then with a pull of the trigger and a flash... they go away. Scott free. Blameless. Because what can you do to the dead?

It's actions like this that make us want to believe in Hell. I wish I could believe in such a thing. I wish I could tell myself with absolute certainty that this particular killer was at this very moment having his eyeballs slowly pierced by needles while his genitals were devoured by rats. I'd like to believe he was being torn apart piece by piece, and reassembled only to be torn apart again for eternity. I want to think those kids and teachers are in a better place where life isn't so iffy and dangerous. But I don't really think any of that is happening. I think the murderer is just gone. I think the children are gone. I hope its not true. I hope that I am wrong. But for certain the only thing that remains here is the memory of what he has done. He lives on only as a monument to whatever failure created him... be it parenting, doctors, "the system"... whatever. We'll all read about it in a few days and decide who to blame. And then we'll go about our lives.

The children who survived this will be scarred for life. Perhaps some of them witnessed first hand the murders. Not an easy thing for a kindergarten student. Tough thing for Big Bird to explain. They'll bury it somehow, and hopefully go on to healthy prosperous lives. But it is always going to be there.

I don't know where I'm going with any of this. I just felt the need to spew nonsense I suppose. Basically what I'm trying to say is that there are a lot of broken, hopeless people on this planet. And no law can stop them. No mental evaluation can predict the breaking of a mind. We're all rolling the dice when we leave our homes on the chances of meeting one of these lost souls, and hopefully we manage to survive the occasion. In the meantime I hope that we can all enjoy whatever time we have left.

May the broken ones be intelligent enough to seek help, or at the very least, remove themselves from the population before any more damage is done. Thanks for reading. O.A.D.S. will resume it's regularly scheduled ramblings about silly things upon our next writing.