Thank you for writing this, Yvonne. You nailed it...especially the last sentence.

Unfortunately, an assault weapons ban will do nothing to protect people, young or old, from unbalanced individuals who would do unthinkable harm to others of any age- be it their parents or unknown targets of their madness.

You need go no further than suburban Sudbury in recent years, to see one unbalanced student "with differences" murder another middle school student, who he did not know, with a hunting knife before classes began in the boys rest room-- " to see what it would feel like".

Connecticut Governor Malloy said, " evil visited Newtown" last Thursday. Evil or madness does not need a concealed weapon  or an assault rifle-or a hunting knife, to wreak personal tragedy on families.

Personal madness will find a killing weapon.

Unbalanced evil and madness does

Madam Abraham: Guns are not the only issue here, and this is not an American problem exclusively. Guns are much harder to get in Olso, and in France and there are many other countries where a mad person has gone on a killing spree. We are all concerned for our childrens saftey but stop blaming everything on the second amendment, and making it sound as if only the guns went away there would be no more crazy men

Why do you need a tradegy to hug your children?

"We are only as sensible as the least sensible among us"?  You do "us" an injustice; we're much more discerning than to rely on simple-minded and dangerous "cures" like the ones you urge on us.  As for what to tell children; why not try the truth--there are disturbed people out there that are able to perpetrate violence largely because we have disarmed those intent on protecting (him) and "us".

I invite us all to read Professor Lott's article in Newsmax.com.  He brings credible study and solutions to the topic of gun controls.

Advice:  smell, sniff, and hold, lady, AFTER you get a firearm and learn how to use it.

I know your every feeling, Yvonnne. For me they center now on grandchildren but they are or should be universal. I knew everything I needed to know about the events in Newtown in the first minute of reporting. I have not listened or watched or read about it since. I averted my eyes from the front pages of newspapers. Albert Camus came to mind. His anguished meditation on the suffering of Algerian children in The Plague. My uncle and father-in-law who had been at Iwo Jima and who, when they met, needed only one minute to say to each other all they needed to say about that experience. Finally, a friend and colleague, an ex-marine with broad shoulders and serious mean, a pickup driving fellow with Republican tendencies and new father of a four month old boy, told me that when he heard the news he had to pull off the road and just cry.