Greetings. It is hard to write this week or to find words or a business topic that matter in the face of the unbearable tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut. And even harder to imagine what an entire community of parents, siblings, grandparents, family, friends, and neighbors will do to cope with the loss of their loved ones–especially their children.
We are all diminished more than we will ever know by the sudden loss of all their smiles, their enthusiasm, laughter, and genius that will never have the chance to flourish. And if we can’t, as a society, finally find a sane response to the plague of gun violence now, we will miss the sad but important opportunity to acknowledge that each of their lives mattered. And we will miss the chance to show that we are a nation that really does care–a nation that believes more fully in the safety of its people than in the right of gun manufacturers, lobbyists, and gutless members of Congress to sell assault rifles and semi-automatic weapons to citizens.
Last year their were more 10,000 murders in the U.S. involving guns.
Last year there were 18 murders in the United Kingdom involving guns. Faced with their own school “massacre” in Dunblane, Scotland, in 1996, the people and government of the U.K. chose to change the accessibility of guns in their lives. Do we have the moral and political will to protect the rights of law-abiding citizens, hunters, and especially our children?
I often write about the power of individuals and groups to make remarkable things happen against the greatest of odds and the most powerful competitors.
Now is such a time.
