Re-Living Sandy Hook

UPDATE:  Pro-gun nuts today heckled the father of a 6-year-old Sandy Hook victim at a state hearing.  "When Neil Heslin, who was holding a picture of his deceased son, Jesse Lewis, during his testimony, asked the state senate why Bushmaster-type assault rifles should be legal, several gun enthusiasts in the audience reportedly shouted him down, yelling 'The Second Amendment!'"  Somehow he kept his composure.

Earlier: In a gut-wrenching story just posted, NYT talks to seven Newtown police officers, some for the first time, about what they found after they entered the school in Sandy Hook.   And after they found two teachers and entered the classroom... It's a story that should never be repeated.  But will be if things don't change (see heckling above).

One thing to keep in mind in reading this:  The teachers and staffers, behind locked doors, refused to let the cops in, fearing they were bad guys and officers had to rip hinges off to get in some rooms.  If the teachers had been armed--would they have blasted the rescuers, who were in a frenzy,  when they started banging on the doors and yelling? 

The stories also reveal the deep stress that lingers for officers who, until Dec. 14, had focused their energies on maintaining order in a low-crime corner of suburbia. Some can barely sleep. Little things can set off tears: a television show, a child’s laughter, even the piles of gifts the Police Department received from across the country.

One detective, who was driving with his wife and two sons, passed a roadside memorial on Route 25 two weeks after the shooting, and began sobbing uncontrollably. “I just lost it right there, I couldn’t even drive,” the detective, Jason Frank, said.

Does America care?  I've tried to bring national attention to the recent murders in Albuquerque, when a kid easily took rifles from unlocked closet and killed mom and dad and three very young siblings--two of them younger than any that died at Sandy Hook.  But no one seems to care.