Sandy Hook: A Profile (2/23/2013)

News continues to grab the front pages nearly 75 days after the horrible tragedy that took the lives of so many innocent children and the brave educators who stepped in front of them on that as fateful mid-December morning as tried to intervene while Adam Lanza diabolically marched through Sandy Hook Elementary wantonly killing his victims .

Today Vice-President Joe Biden was just a few miles from Newtown, Connecticut at Western Connecticut State University rallying for support of gun control proposals along with community, education and police leaders.  Biden said Sandy Hook fundamentally altered the debate over gun control and “there will be a moral price paid for inaction”. He went on to call for a series of proposals to include universal background checks for gun owners, a ban on military-style weapons and a limit on the size of high-capacity magazines for semi-automatic pistols or long arms.

The debate rages on between those that covet the Second Amendment, Right to Bear Arms and those that want stricter and stricter gun control in America.

We posited our position in a recent Blog asking for mandatory background checks on both gun buyers and the guns themselves. This would be accomplished through a dual background check during the course of any gun transaction whether the gun is purchased at a sporting goods store, a gun dealer, a convention hall gun show or over the Internet. Any and ALL gun transactions would be required to go through a licensed gun dealer or what is officially called a Federal Firearms Licensee (FFL). This would significantly reduce the chances of guns from getting into the hands of criminals or the mentally unfit as well as serving as a screening process and eliminating the Black Market wherein guns that may have been stolen end up being bought and sold.  Penalties for a gun transaction without the requisite process and checks on both the buyer and the weapon would be a felony.  We know this is not going to keep guns out of the hand of the “bad guys” but we believe it represents a relatively fair and simple solution to the commerce of guns and it allows good upstanding Americans to own weapons to protect themselves and their families without infringing on their Second Amendment rights.

Interesting that the latest issue in the news this week surrounding Sandy Hook is that the Connecticut State Police released a statement that their ongoing post-shooting investigation indicates that Adam Lanza may have been emulating the actions of another mass shooter, Anders Behring Breivik, of Norway whose senseless rampage with a car bomb and high powered assault rifle took the lives of 77 including boy scout campers back in the summer of 2011.

This information most likely is coming from an analysis of documents, emails, writings, diaries and whatever else State Police investigators and analysts are combing through to somehow “connect the dots” and try to determine what motivated a young man to bring himself to commit such bloodshed.

The final analysis which is probably still months away will include causes and motivations providing insight to not only law-enforcement but educators and mental health professional throughout the world in their effort to somehow prevent the next Sandy Hook … or Columbine or …. Virginia Tech.

As a law-enforcement professional for 35 years with significant exposure to the psychology of criminal profiling and what makes criminals “tick”, I have my own theories regarding Adam Lanza and what brought him to commit the acts of horror that he did. My opinion is not based on any specific evidence emanating from that crime scene in Newtown, Connecticut but based merely on what I have read and learned in open sources about Adam Lanza, his background, state of mind and his relationship with his mother. 

As a graduate student years ago, I studied the effects of media violence on children and young adults with an eye toward determining if a significant exposure of media violence, whether in the form of television, movies, books, comic books or video games, caused young people to be more prone to violence themselves. After exhaustive research and an analysis of anecdotal evidence collected by professionals around the world, I came up with a fairly conclusive position. Significant exposure to violence has little or no impact on young people who are mentally healthy, grounded and have an instilled positive set of values regarding what is right and what is wrong. The latter set of values are normally absorbed by children with grow up in a healthy home environment fostered by positive modeling parents.  It is those children or adolescents that are mentally unstable, lacking a set of positive values and positive role models to emulate that are most likely to be effected by media violence and hence, more likely to manifest and exhibit such violent behavior.

Adam Lanza fit in the latter category and a very dangerous set of circumstances coalesced resulting in his almost incomprehensible rampage of violence.  Here was young man beset with mental issues, he sat in a darkened room for hours on end watching and playing video games where violence is reinforced and where one scores the highest by killing and drawing as much bloodshed as possible.  Adam was also a young man whose mother maintained a collection of guns to include a Browning Bushmaster assault rifle that shoots .223 mm rounds. Adam was not only exposed to these weapons but at his mother’s behest, shot, trained and knew how to the handle these weapons.

It’s been reported that Adams mother had filed paperwork and had begun the process of having Adam institutionalized and moved from their residence.  This process may have been the beginning of what set Adam off.  A young man that shoots his mother in the face repeatedly with a high-powered rifle is overflowing with malice and vengeance.  I can’t help but speculate if Adams mother didn’t berate him at times and compare him to the “nice, smart, normal” children at Sandy Hook where it has been reported she did volunteer work.

Did this combination of variables coalesce and create the “perfect storm” resulting in the carnage that will be forever linked to Adam Lanza: a young man with mental challenges, exposed to hours of media violence, trained and familiar with unlocked and readily available high-powered assault weapons, on the verge of being institutionalized by his mother who may have told Adam, “why can’t you be like the nice children at Sandy Hook Elementary”.

We’ll never fully know, Why, but without a doubt, there are lessons to be learned from Sandy Hook; lessons about the effects of media violence on a particular and vulnerable segment of our population and how guns in the hands of a certain unstable or criminal elements of our society are the guns that bring about wanton and senseless violence.

Let's get sensible about Gun Violence.

In recent weeks in the wake of the Newtown , Connecticut school shootings, I have done a number of media interviews on the topic of gun violence and how will we as a nation will attempt to cope with this tragedy and somehow sensibly address this issue in the coming weeks and months.

Gun violence and the issue of more “gun control” has dominated the daily news cycles since the Newtown incident in mid December sparking s high emotions and divisiveness among Americans across the country.  It seems every politician, news commentator, celebrity and gun owner has a strong and personal opinion as well as a solution but simply enforcing existing gun laws will substantially make each and every one of us safer.  There a few salient issues related to existing gun laws that need to be highlighted.

Through better law enforcement, increased regulation coupled with greater social awareness we Americans have significantly improved the safety of a number of American industries to include our airlines, our highways, our swimming pools and our railroad crossings to name just a few.

There is movement and legislation afoot to greater control and regulate assault rifles, semi-automatic pistols, high capacity magazines and whatever else is deemed to be over threatening to society.  I believe a simple enforcement of existing gun laws would bring a significant change to the landscape, the public’s peace of mind and, undoubtedly, make our schools, theaters, college campuses and political rallies safer and less prone to violence.  There is no doubt that we as a society need to stop and reassess. Since Columbine alone there have been over 100 shootings at schools around the country and since Newtown, Connecticut just 7 weeks ago, there have been 4 or 5 gun incidents on school grounds. 

Let’s as a nation, bring some common sense to the equation that reasonable people would, I believe, overwhelmingly agree.  I think we all agree we must keep guns out of the hands of criminals and those that are mentally unstable.  It is crystal clear from FBI statistics and anecdotal evidence that the overwhelming amount of crimes committed with firearms take place in the hands of both of those aforementioned categories; criminals and the mentally unstable.

Herein, lies the “crack in the system” as we have seen with many government programs whether it be immigration, gun registration, or student loan programs; a lack of consistency and accountability when it comes down to enforcement.  I say this tongue in cheek, but maybe we should consider contracting the management of our gun registry and background check system to UPS or FedEx.  These two companies can tell us at any second of the day or night the location and status of any one of millions of packages floating around the world en route to their destinations.  There are two basic “loopholes” in the system wherein someone can buy or sell a gun without a background check.  We MUST close those loopholes and there is a simple solution.

First of all, if an individual with a criminal record goes to a gun shop or sporting goods store and attempts to buy a gun and he’s turned down because of a problem in his or her background, he just walks off and goes to his local gun show on any one of a number of week-end s at a variety of convention halls around the city. There he sees the semi-automatic pistol he wants sitting on a table, he negotiates a price, plops down his cash and walks out the door pistol in hand and under the radar of ATF.  His second option, if he doesn’t want to or can’t get to a gun show, he just go to the trusty Internet and conducts his pistol purchase there.

In both cases he flies under the radar and no background check is conducted relative to that purchase; either of him or the pistol purchased.

Herein lies the first step in correcting the process.  Each and every gun purchase in America should and MUST be transacted through a licensed Federal Firearms Dealer or Federal Firearms Licensee (FFL), as they are officially called.  Any transaction that is conducted otherwise is a felony.  You can still go to a gun show, see a weapon you want and buy it but the sale and purchase must be transacted through a FFL or both you and the seller have committed a felony.  Yes, you could risk buying the gun without the FFL and the resulting background check just as one could run the risk of buying a stolen car but the risk of is that of committing a felony.  I’ll leave it up to the law-makers to decide the penalty but a sentence of 5 years as a first offense would good for starters.

Now, let’s examine the second part of the equation and an equally important part of the solution to reducing gun violence.  During the course of that transaction and background check, not only is a background conducted on the purchaser but also on the weapon.  This is also accomplished through a simple National Crime Information Center (NCIC) criminal database check.  This would provide a screening for weapons that may have been stolen from residences, vehicles or used in prior crimes.  Houston, Texas leads the nation in home burglaries and throughout the city hundreds of weapons have been stolen from people’s homes and vehicles. This would close the loophole on the “black market” sale of guns and return those stolen guns to their rightful owners.  I have talked at length with my police colleagues who work the streets regarding this issue and they wholeheartedly agree.

This two-part simple background process would significantly reduce gun violence in our society. 

We submit to background checks in application for drivers licenses, to secure a passport or to open a bar and restaurant…let’s not slam the door on this simple and sensible concept, screaming unimpeded Second  Amendment rights when asked to comply with these common sense steps which may keep a dangerous weapon out of the hands of those two categories we previously cited,  criminals and the mentally unstable.  We honor and want to preserve the Second  Amendment but it was written in different times and in a far different world…..a world where guns were single shot musket balls and gun powder and people inherently respected the rights of others and there were not desensitizing video games watched in dark corners for hours by children trying to achieve the highest score by killing as many people as possible in a blood spattered video games.  Furthermore, a polling of NRA members showed a 74% support of background checks.

Lastly, the issue of some sort of “mental health check” being part of the background process has been on the discussion table.  In my opinion, under current privacy laws as they relate to HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), this is going to be a difficult to include.  The only way some sort of mental health “box” could be checked is if a medical report signed by a mental health professional is required as a part of the background check.  In the State of Texas, for example, there are certain licenses wherein the applicant is required to provide such “mental health stability” documentation.  Under Texas state law in order to carry a firearm as a Personal Protection Officer, a background check by a licensed mental health professional is required.  Similarly, the Texas Department of Transportation requires a mental health check in order to be issued certain drivers licenses such as long-haul trucks and other specialty vehicles.

Again, the imposition and acceptance of a common sense, functional and comprehensive background program on ALL gun sales void of any loopholes is the first real step in greatly reducing gun violence in our schools, theaters, malls and political rallies.

Bob Levinson, Six Years and Counting in Captivity....Diplomatic and Non-Diplomatic efforts to free him.

http://www.helpboblevinson.com/

I find it interesting to contrast the efforts and non-efforts of this and past Administrations on behalf of Bob Levinson, currently languishing in an Iranian prison, with that of the two Current TV journalists, Euna Lee and Laura Ling who were captured, tried and convicted in North Korean three years ago.
Lee and Ling, who were doing a documentary for Current TV on refugees and refugee smuggling from N. Korea to China, were warned repeated by the North Korean military to stay out of the country. (And yes, that's the same Current TV owned in part by Al Gore and recently sold to AL-Jazerra for hundreds of millions.)
These two women clearly violated North Korean law and once arrested inside North Korea, were quickly tried, convicted and sentenced to 12 years of hard labor.
They were strongly admonished by religious and human rights groups on the Chinese side of the border for having outed and severely damaged any progress these groups had been able to attain on the Chinese side of the border regarding safe-houses and key operatives. God only knows the ultimate fate of their other contacts and sources to include their Chinese-based Korean guide who, as far as I recall, never got out.
I find it amazing that these 2 selfish and rogue journalists, nonetheless, brought about a tsunami of  "diplomatic" efforts to free them. Those efforts were led by President Obama, Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, the Swedish Ambassador acting on behalf of the U.S. Interests Section in Pyongyang and a University of Georgia, Korean Professor with ties to Korea.  The man leading  the charge right into the office of President Kim Jong-il was no other than Bill Clinton, tasked by Hillary and President Obama to get over there forthwith.
Well, as we all recall, Bill left North Korean with the 2 journalists in tow on a private 737 owned by Hollywood mogul, Steve Bing ultimately landing in Los Angeles where they were greeted by Al Gore and throngs of Hollywood and media types holding press conferences, lauding them as heros for their wonderful humanitarian efforts.  I distinctly remember the feelings of nausea I felt not only by the disdain I felt for their hubris and selfish over-righteousness but for the damage they had done and the lives they cost.
Well, that's the long and short of one saga related to the capture by a rogue nation of two Americans acting as "journalists" who violated their laws and the massive intervention by the U.S. government to set them free.
On the other hand, we have Bob Levinson, a man who served his country for all of his adult life with honor and distinction and who selflessly continued in retirement to try and "do the right thing" and Mrs. Levinson and her family can't even get the State Department to return her phone calls after two years of having received the photos and videos of Bob in Iranian captivity.
Talk about getting nauseous.
It's probably the understatement of the year but seems like our policy and law-makers in Washington have a different perspective on what and who is priority and what and who is not.
Unfortunately, it appears as though rogue journalists who clearly violated international law, further strained already strained U.S./North Korean relations and put many people lives in harms way rate higher in Washington, D.C. diplomatic channels than a former FBI agent who gave the better part of his life in service to his country. .

What I learned at the Red Lake school shooting

It is with trepidation that I write this. I seem lately to have a foot in two diametrically opposed worlds, each populated by people vociferous in their positions and dismissive of those with whom they disagree.

I'm disheartened by the invective hurled about in the wake of the Connecticut atrocity committed by a disturbed young man. I fear that in the justifiably horrified revulsion to the Sandy Hook massacre all pretense of civility will be abandoned, the polarization of this country will continue, and we will lose what I consider an essential right enjoyed by all Americans.

I am an NRA member (at least as of this writing), a supporter of the Second Amendment, a firearms instructor and the possessor of a permit to carry a concealed weapon. I live in a very rural area, but was raised in New York City and grew up under its restrictive gun laws. I still have a few friends back there (again at least as of this moment) and much of my family still lives there.

I am a retired FBI agent who, at 3:30 p.m. on March 21, 2005, arrived at Red Lake High School to take initial command of the charnel house left after a massacre perpetrated by a disturbed boy, aided passively by peers who knew at least that he was fascinated with school shootings and was talking about doing one, and stopped by the interdiction of my courageous compatriots in Red Lake law enforcement.

I would spend countless hours reviewing video, chat logs and interviews and later, for better or worse, would assist the U.S. Attorney's office in taking the case through the federal courts. In 2006, shortly after the resolution of the court case, I had a heart attack, joining a growing list of people physically and emotionally impacted by the massacre.

I can't help recalling, in detail, my arrival at the scene, the obscene images I saw and the cold actions I took. I learned that even children are capable of evil, but also that among us common people are heroes.

The first body I saw was that of a former compatriot, Derrick Brun, a gentle giant of a man who had recently left the Red Lake Police Department and was working as the school security guard. Though unarmed, Derek confronted the shooter and died a warrior's death. That first shot alerted the staff and enabled many teachers to secure their pupils, reducing the number of victims available.

A teacher, under fire, had calmly evacuated her children out the back door of a classroom. When the shooter tried to force his way through the door, she sat on the floor and braced her feet against the door as bullets flew above her.

My friends in Red Lake law enforcement performed a perfect "active shooter" response, exchanging fire and wounding the shooter, forcing him to retreat back to a classroom to kill himself.

The surviving children in that room were crying for the officers to get into the room; the senior officer reminded himself as he entered through the narrow shot-out window panel that if he was hit he had to keep moving, so as not to block the rest of the officers.

I soon learned I had lost another friend -- "Dash" Lussier, or "Grandpa," as I sometimes called him -- murdered in his bed by a grandson he had tried to mentor.

On that day, I made a teacher accompany me back into her classroom to identify her dead students. An overly protective father of two daughters, I searched the bodies of young women, looking for identification. I ordered exhausted and shell-shocked officers to search the school again. I gave horrible news to a desperate family member.

I will carry these memories to my grave. When each new mass killing is announced on television, I can't watch; I begin sweating, get sick to my stomach. My cup has runneth over.

I do not unearth these memories casually. I do so out of frustration with the things I am hearing -- and with what I am not hearing.

A right paid for with blood

Despite some unbelievable comments, postings and opinions to the contrary, the NRA did not commit the Sandy Hook massacre and is not a terrorist organization equal to Al-Qaida. The NRA does much good in regards to firearms in this country, sponsoring responsible shooting events, safety training and education for thousands every year, including children.

The NRA is not composed of cowardly white rural males who drive pickup trucks and use poor English. People from all walks of life have benefited from being taught the principles of safe and responsible firearm use by the NRA.

The Second Amendment is not about hunting. It is about the history-changing idea that common people should be able to possess arms to preserve their safety and freedom.

Prior to that idea's establishment, on the penalty of death, only the king's soldiers could possess arms. The poor were at the mercy of tyrants who could take their sons for war, their daughters for pleasure, and their land and lives with impunity.

Those dark days seem to be ancient history. But as a young, intelligent and very liberal friend of mine pointed out, history tends to be pretty dynamic, and I cannot foresee the future. We have ample modern examples of what the inability to provide for personal defense results in -- from the Warsaw Ghetto to the misery of our poor neighbors to the south living among drug gangs. I am therefore loath to surrender a right that was paid for in blood by my forefathers.

Nor is the Second Amendment the exclusive possession of those old, white, rural pickup drivers. It also belongs to Mexican-Americans in Texas; Muslim Americans in Michigan; terrified young women barricading themselves against murderous ex-husbands; African-American parents wanting to live in peace in Chicago; Native Americans living on lonely reservations, and gay Americans watching a car circling their home.

To the arguments that guns in the home are more likely to kill a family member than an intruder; that many so-called defensive uses of guns are actually criminal escalations; that guns seldom solve a problem -- I agree.

But not all of us in this country live in a city where there are hundreds or thousands of police officers and you can expect to hear sirens within 30 seconds of dialing 911. Many of us live in the kinds of places I do -- a county the size of Rhode Island, where at night only two deputies patrol the roads.

For rural people from Alaska to Alabama and points between, that rifle, shotgun or handgun, for better or worse, is their only real ally in a terrifying situation.

Tolerating the intolerable

All that said, the NRA and we gun owners have tolerated an intolerable situation: the profusion of assault weapons and large-capacity magazines; the ridiculous loophole of gun shows and private sales evading the instant background check; the inability of the background check to be integrated with the National Crime Information Center; the lack of due diligence in transferring firearms to those who should not have them; the lack of cooperation with law enforcement to report problematic behavior; the selfishness of our desires to have more and more lethal weapons and technology without concern for our terrified fellow citizens who do not share the belief that such weapons better secure us.

If we cherish our right to bear arms, we must be vigilant in assuring others that it is being exercised responsibly. The proliferation of weapons that are made for high-capacity magazines is out of control.

When I came out of the FBI Academy in 1984, I was issued a six-shot revolver and 18 rounds of ammunition, and I felt well-armed. To this day I cannot for the life of me understand why someone would want to own, much less carry, a weapon with a magazine holding 15 rounds and more. If you need to do that, join the Armed Forces.

I cannot imagine any reasonable use of defensive deadly force by a citizen that would require more than a couple shots.

Yet open a gun magazine or go into a gun shop, and you will see weapons being marketed to the public that mount flashlights, flash suppressors, laser beams and electronic sights and can accept magazines holding up to 100 rounds.

You can buy a pistol (the FN-Hertsal FiveSeven) that fires a cartridge designed for military use only, intended to penetrate helmets and body armor. A perfect terrorist's or mass killer's tool, it holds 23 rounds in its magazine and is manufactured in Belgium -- which, of course, does not allow its own citizens to possess it.

My attempts to convince my elected representatives of both political parties to ban this weapon years ago fell upon deaf ears. Soon after, this same weapon was used in the Fort Hood shootings.

I say ban the assault weapons and high-capacity magazines -- or put them under the National Firearms Act as Class III ATF regulated destructive devices requiring yearly, restrictive federal licensing provisions. They've become the tools of choice for the mass killer.

Even the Red Lake shooter tried to use one. But, praise be, while he was loading a 30-round magazine, he jammed it and left it in my poor murdered friend's house.

A new cult of death

This conversation about what is reasonable to possess, and how to keep firearms out of the hands of unstable people, is overdue. Hopefully it will lead to constructive changes that reduce the threat of gun violence.

But unfortunately, right now, even as you are reading this essay, at least several people in this country are plotting new attacks. They may or may not have already assembled their guns, or picked out the person they will kill to get them. They may have decided on and researched their target.

We don't know who they are. But we know what they are -- members of a new cult of death that worships the monsters who came before them and has but one goal: to exceed the body count or the horror of the latest massacre and thus be remembered as the worst of them all.

They can recite from rote the statistics of past horrors: the names of the victims at Columbine and what wounds they suffered; what weapons the Red Lake shooter used, and how he shot through a reinforced glass panel; what the term "Trenchcoat Mafia" refers to; who "Reb" and "Vodka" were; how many times the Norway killer had to reload.

They have desensitized themselves and trained by playing violent video games, by visiting jihadist beheading sites and by watching over and over again such disgusting "productions" as "Elephant" and "Zero Day" -- essentially training videos on how to commit school shootings and glorifications of them.

Avidly they watch the news and troll and lurk on violent websites, attempting to recruit fellow students and dropping hints or "leakage" as they do so. For it is all about their ego. We cannot tell when they will act or what will trigger their rampage: the next day the temperature goes below zero, Adolf Hitler's birthday, or a mother's refusal to give them gas money that morning.

When these monsters finally arrive at their chosen target, they are on suicide missions, generally unstoppable. They have researched, learned and trained in some cases for years and act without hesitation.

Unpopular as Wayne LaPierre of the NRA is today -- and regardless of how much I disagree with him on many issues -- on one point, he is right: The only way to stop these terrorists is a trained officer with a gun. Had Derrick Brun had a gun, chances are the shooter would have not made it into Red Lake High School alive.

I have read all the objections to having an armed police officer in a school: It makes our schools into armed camps; it's not the way we want to live; the officer may be unavailable; it's too expensive, and the officer may miss or be killed. All true.

But here we are, and somewhere out there, our next mass shooter waits. I feel that if we can force the issue, make constructive changes, put the sentinels in place for a year or two, we may be able to break the cycle that now seems to have gripped us.

Hunting them down

What is missing in all of the current discussions is what we can do to preempt an attack. Many of our faceless monsters share one significant vulnerability -- their own obsessions. The FBI for years has had squads devoted to tracking people attempting to sexually exploit children: the "Innocent Images" initiative, in which agents work on a task force to lure molesters and exploiters by pretending to be innocent minors surfing on websites.

The school shooters are also surfing: There are websites devoted to such evil. The Red Lake shooter spent two years researching on the computer, and though I know little of the Newtown, Conn., shooter, I am struck that he destroyed his computer before carrying out his spree.

It is time to treat these people for what they are -- terrorists -- and to hunt them down using the very medium through which they gather their bloody statistics, plan and recruit fellow travelers.

It may not seem like much at first: a self-isolated young male researching the Aurora massacre, ordering military surplus vests and large-capacity magazines, visiting gun sites, playing "Halo" and "Call to Duty," ordering "Elephant." But a knock on his door and the questioning it produces might avert another Sandy Hook.

The same for psychopaths who ambush our first responders. Background check records need to be integrated with law enforcement records, so a local police department will be alerted when a person undergoing the check to purchase a firearm is the same person who a month before was reported to have threatened to kill a neighbor. Law enforcement needs access to past instant background checks, which it currently does not have.

We as a community need to be reminded of our own responsibility to call law enforcement when we become aware that an unstable or criminal family member, neighbor or friend, who has not yet drawn a disqualifying conviction or adjudication, has obtained or has tried to obtain a firearm.

Law enforcement must start treating improper firearms possession with the same seriousness it now applies to drunken driving. Because, all the rhetoric aside, without access to a firearm, the potential lethality of these people is exponentially lowered.

Time to talk, and to act

We need to talk, to really listen to each other, to compromise. It is perfectly understandable to react with horror and lash out with frustration at the atrocities committed in Sandy Hook and Webster, N.Y. But if we are to solve this problem, we must work together: both parts of the country, and all the various factions that are part of this situation.

We must recall that we live in a complicated, diverse society. If we persist in lashing out in our emotion, demonizing and accusing each other, we will feed the false perceptions on either side.

We must ignore the agenda-driven extremists on either side, whether it's the NRA's vice president or the ban-and-confiscate-all-guns advocates. It is pointless to look for blame. Too many guns, too few restrictions, inadequate laws to deal with the mentally ill, violent video games and an amoral film industry. All true. But again, here we are. We must act.

Recently I heard a wonderful program on National Public Radio about Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. I was struck by one of his quotes: "Some are guilty, but all are responsible."

I pray for the victims and families in Newtown and Aurora and Virginia Tech and Red Lake and Columbine and Minneapolis and Norway and Webster and all the other lesser known atrocities -- and for my country.

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John Patrick Egelhof, of Bemidji, Minn., is a private investigator and retired FBI agent.

This was originally published in the Minneapolis Star Tribune