The past two mornings I've woken to the morning articles of the tragic Connecticut shooting that happened Friday morning. Every article was, and still is (Sunday, December 16) related to the shooter and the victims.
I personally tried to refrain from this story, not that I didn't care for the story. It's a terrible thing to have any child killed; and a mass killing at that. It's just the fact that as a apprentice of the maker of the news cycle, you already know what happens as talking points, what will be done.
You already know that the news will cover this story for the next 10 days (as they should for a story like this). You know that you will have to deal with seeing the gut-wrench victims family morn their children and tell their most memorable memories of them to reporters. You know that the topic of gun control will come up, and even though we have shootings damn-near everyday (including the shooting at a mall in Portland,OR, earlier this week) there're still people will defend the open market of fire arm purchases. You know that with all the talking of something to be done with gun control, no action will actually be taken place. You also would know that the public officials puppet strings hang tight to the NRA, an organization that prides its self on protecting you but always manages to scare the hell out of their own (armed) members when any type of control of the purchase of guns are mentioned.
Its not fair as a member of the media to do this to our viewers, its not not just a job of informing but also protecting them. We owe them more than just a 10 day talking point. We all know what needs to be done. The argument of the "people kill people" defense has become a straw one. A angered man walks into a school armed or unarmed is the only difference of the possible outcome that morning. Whats the matter with making sure nut jobs don't get guns in their hands? Is the interest of the NRA really that important to uphold over 20 children's lives? This isn't radical thinking, its common sense (which seems to grow less common). I just wonder how long until we're having this conversation again. Just to see if the talking points will ever actually grow into something productive.
