When it was announced yesterday that U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was pulling the assault weapons ban from the gun bill currently being looked at in Congress, I ran outside to see if I could hear assault weapons being fired into the air around my neighborhood in celebration.

My neighborhood was pretty quiet for a Tuesday afternoon. There was no sporadic gunfire to be heard.

I did hear some elementary school children laughing and having a good time during their recess a few blocks away – an elementary school that both my children attended. My thoughts then turned to Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and the 20 kids who were senselessly murdered along with six adults on December 14, 2012. There are no more recesses for those children. Their parents have holes in their hearts from losing a child. I cannot imagine the pain.

For a few days (maybe a week or so) after Sandy Hook the United States seemed poised to tighten the gun laws and maybe make us just a little safer. That movement faded quickly and now we can say that the gun lobby has won, once again. Continue reading →