A darker grief

Dear Editor:

The glad anticipation I feel for my children’s Christmas is paired, now, with the aching knowledge that many families in Connecticut will see the holiday dawn with darker grief than they’ve ever known.

I am so angry that the brightness of their beautiful sons and daughters was torn away from them in a matter of minutes. I am angry that assault weapons, which exist only to spread instant and sustained destruction, are so freely available that our countrymen see them as toys, rather than tools of death.

I am angry that the children who survived the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting must carry their awful experience with them for their entire lives. Their teachers protected them, and we should do no less.

No national response will be worthy of those children unless it delivers a permanent ban on assault weapons.

Kate Shunney
Berkeley Springs