Emilie Parker laid to rest next to her grandfather

Associated Press ^ | December 22, 2012 | Associated Press (ctPost)

[CharlesWayneCT]

OGDEN, Utah -- Emilie Parker, a 6-year-old victim of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, was laid to rest next to her grandfather Saturday in the town where she was born.

Burial at Evergreen Memorial Park followed a private funeral for family and close friends at a Mormon church across the street from Ben Lomond High School, where Emilie's parents, Robbie and Alissa Parker, met.

[MarMema]

And yet one guy insists that there are 20 such families, all fake, all pretending, and that the rest of us are idiots for not noticing.

Which is why it must be true. But you have to admit it was so incredibly convenient for a gun control agenda, and there are a lot of very strange things about it. Be patient and kind with people who are disbelieving, engage them in dialogue. I see people who are frightened in a healthcare setting and whose children are dying, and it is just so incredibly hard for me to reconcile those smiling, laughing, interviewed parents of recently killed children with my other reality.

[CharlesWayneCT]

I was just reading a fiction book, “Earth Unaware”, a prequel by Orson Scott Card to “Ender’s Game” and the entire Ender’s series.

I mention this because in one part of the book, a child’s father is killed, and she discusses through the narrative how she is annoyed at how people are treating her. She felt compelled to put on a happy face to prove she was as tough as the others, and they mistook that for not caring about her father; the book notes that she is crying constantly, but puts on a brave face to others, and isn’t going to explain herself because it would defeat the purpose.

The book doesn’t present this as if it is a foreign concept, or shocking. I don’t find it such — it is a rational explanation of how some people might handle the loss of a loved one, grieving in private but putting on an act in public. In doing so, one method deployed is humor, because funny things can distract us from the pain, as can talking about other mundane, ordinary things (like your mortgage).

This isn’t some bizarre behavior — it is a quite common coping behavior when one suffers a sudden, shocking, loss of a dear loved one.

As to whether this was convenient for a gun control agenda, I think you have it wrong. the gun control agenda is always there, waiting for opportunity. So ANY violent use of guns is going to be “convenient”. Some have said it seemed odd that the gun control groups were “ready” — but it isn’t, they are ALWAYS ready. They were ready after Virginia Tech, ready after Giffords, ready after Aurora.

What made this particularly “convenient” was simply that it is the first shooting AFTER the election, when people feel more free to act contrary to public opinion.

And moreso, as we step back and watch, we see that in fact, almost nothing is going to happen. It won’t turn out to have been convenient, or an opportunity, except an opportunity for the gun control folks to overstep and fall on their faces.

The absolute worst thing that could possibly come of this is a more universal background check process. But even that won’t be absolute, and I’m not sure it will happen at all, since the gun control side is unlikely to settle for just that, and anything they attach to it will cause the entire bill to fail.

[MarMema]

THANK you for this. Good feedback. I am appreciative of your respectful response to me..