As a general rule, I don’t write about current events. I try to keep my blog free of hot-ticket issues, political opinions and potentially controversial issues. There are plenty of other blogs and online sources if you want to read that sort of thing, and while I certainly have no shortage of opinions on anything, I have chosen to keep those separate from my ramblings here. This is my place to whine and snark and rant about my admittedly privileged life.

But I had to say something. I couldn’t NOT say something. The events at Sandy Hook Elementary on Friday have absolutely broken my heart. I am raising my children in what becomes an increasingly terrifying world and I’m just not even sure how to deal. It is clear that no one is safe. No matter where we live or where we send our children to school, unthinkable, horrifying violence is everywhere. It is no longer confined primarily to large cities or so-called “dangerous” neighborhoods. People have access to heavy weaponry – guns that no civilian should really ever need – and misguided, disturbed souls are using them against the innocent.

In this case, innocent children. The vast majority of the Newtown victims were babies, you guys. Children just marginally older than my little girl. My heart shattered into a million pieces whenever I first heard the news. There just aren’t words for this kind of atrocity. Those poor precious babies. They must have been so utterly terrified, and certainly far too little to have any idea of what was happening.

I can’t even imagine what their families must be feeling right now. The loss of a child is heartbreaking regardless, but the loss of a child to violence – needless, random violence – is something else entirely. Those parents sent their children to school Friday morning with no inkling of what was to happen. I’m sure many of their mornings started as mine so often do. Repeated requests to get dressed. Increasingly frustrated pleas to hurry. “Come on, let’s go, we’re going to be late!” “Quit arguing and get your clothes on!” “Why haven’t you brushed your teeth yet? HURRY UP!” Those families were going about their morning routines, and none of them had any idea that it was the last time.

I cried at my desk more than once on Friday. As a parent, it’s hard to keep from imagining what you would do if it were you. If it were your children who were involved in a school shooting. And then your heart breaks a little more.

We have to do something. We have to. I don’t know what the solution is – better mental health care. Reevaluation of our gun control laws, certainly. I’ve had to distance myself from the news coverage somewhat but my personal assumption is that the Sandy Hook shooter was quite mentally unbalanced. I think we can all agree that anyone who would commit such an atrocity is clearly deeply disturbed in some way. Healthy, well-adjusted people do not walk into elementary schools with semi-automatic weapons and gun down innocent children.

Columbine High School. Virginia Tech. Movie theaters. Factories. Churches, temples, shopping malls. Fort Hood. Nowhere is safe. How many of these incidents could have been avoided by making it harder for people to obtain guns? It doesn’t matter, you say. If people want guns, they’ll get them – legally or not. That may be true, but this article on Japan’s highly restrictive gun legislation is eye-opening. Think about that. A highly-developed nation in which almost no one owns a gun. Why is that so scary to us, as Americans? When our forefathers drafted the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, I hardly think it occurred to them that the ease with which Americans can obtain and keep firearms would become so problematic a couple hundred years down the line.

I don’t claim to be an expert on gun control legislation, proposed or practiced. I’m not going to pretend otherwise. And in theory I’m not actually opposed to the owning of handguns by private citizens. What I *am* opposed to is the relative ease of getting them.

I’m from Texas, as you know. And Texans have a particularly unique opinion on keeping weapons in one’s home. In the days after a tragedy such as this, my Facebook feed fills up with people extolling the virtues of having a concealed handgun license. People post pictures of handguns with clever little rhymes like “Now I lay me down to sleep, by my bed a gun I keep. If I awake and find you inside, a coroner’s van will be your last ride.”

This isn’t a joke. Gun control is not something to make light of. We have a real problem here. Sick people are getting their hands on weapons because we make it easy for them. Like I said, access to guns isn’t the whole issue. Clearly there are people with mental instabilities that need our help. I think that is every bit as important, but it is also a harder place to start.

Start with the guns. Stop the next tragedy before it even starts. The mentally ill need our help, and the first step is making it impossible for them to create these scenarios. The Sandy Hook shooter killed himself that day, and at 20 years old, he wasn’t much beyond childhood himself. The Virginia Tech killer was only 23. At Columbine, the offenders were just teens. Could we have stopped them? Is there something their parents could have done differently? I dare you to read this story and not gain a new understanding of those who suffer mental illness. Terrifying and emotionally heartrending for all involved.

A side note: I also think the media should be careful in publicizing the personal details and glorifying the horrific agendas of these murderers, but my issues with reporters and the American media are a topic for another day.

Basically it boils down to one thing. We have babies killing babies. This has got to end. We have to make it stop. I don’t want my children to grow up in a world where schools have to have “Active Shooter Protocols” in place. But per the email from my son’s principal this weekend, they are. The system is broken, and we need to fix it before any more children are senselessly murdered. Before another community has to bury twenty innocent children.

Now is the time. Because it is already too late.