To the Editor:

This letter is in response to the articles covering the seven year anniversary of the Newtown shootings.

I will never forget that awful day no matter how many anniversaries follow to help us grieve the loss of so many little children and very young adults.

As the news developed throughout the day, I felt as though I had just been punched in the chest from something that didn’t directly involve me from so far away. With the loss of those little children and young adults went a time of future possibilities; human lives cut short of fulfilling their destinies. This event has greatly affected our country as well because the influence they would have had on the human condition has been cut short. Still, we as a people cannot let their deaths be in vain, for in a sense, [their deaths] exposed the need for change when it comes to owning a firearm. From most of the shootings that have occurred in the last few years, it appears to be the result of someone with severe mental health problems that somehow gained access to weapons they had no business obtaining. The time is long overdue for the American people to take aggressive action to prevent the obtainment of such weapons of mass destruction by those with a history of severe mental illness. Whoever allows them access must be punished the same as the perpetrator.

The question before us all is, how long must we be forced to wait until another terrible shooting occurs under the same or similar circumstances? To those in favor of the status quo I ask you this: What if that had been your child?

Would you still be behaving in the same way? [The shooter] did more than take the lives of little children and young adults; he took away something in my heart, as well. Yes, I shall grieve the loss of my babies and brothers and sisters. Today and tomorrow we will mourn you, but the next day and the day after we will miss you and will always fall back on your loss when our own crosses seem just too tough to bear.

Joe Bialek

4233 River Ridge Drive

Cleveland, Ohio December 16, 2019