Sandy Hook

It's been a week since the horrifying events at Sandy Hook Elementary school. Glued to the news, blogs, and social media I spent Friday trying to wrap my head around what had just occurred. Not much has been uncovered since. We don't know why it happened and unfortunately we may never get inside the killer's mind. What has happened is a palpable gut reaction from everyone in my network, from the government, and from communities just like Newton because we know that this was preventable.

Like I do on every Christmas, I went to the movies. At the AMC in the East Village, Zack and I sat down to watch Zero Dark Thirty and as the lights dimmed for the previews, I kept looking at the guy behind us. He was alone, kept fidgeting, and rubbed me the wrong way- so much so that it crossed my mind many times throughout the movie that he might try to hurt everyone in the theatre. It didn't happen. But, for the first time in my adult life I was scared in a public place.

I ride the subway, I walk past the 9/11 memorial to my office everday, I live in NYC. But, I usually feel safe- the safety in numbers, the notion that the police are the best in the world makes me feel secure. But lately I haven't. The Aurora movie theatre shootings, Ohio mall attack, the Sandy Hook tragedy have left me uneasy about how safe we really all are.

I am not naive enough to think that we can rid the world of evil. But I am hopeful we can start to understand why we have so many tragedies like this and put the right legislation in place. The facts don't lie: we have so many more gun-related incidents because the US laws are more permissive than anywhere else. The US makes up 5% of the world's population and has 50% of the world's guns.

I am not in politics, but we need to fix this. I understand that the rights within the Constitution are near and dear to many people - and I am not suggesting we take those away. We do however, have a right to protect civilians. That means more stringent gun laws that actually deny access for some. We need psychological evaluations, a real test to get a license, and an understanding as to why a civilian needs a weapon. What the NRA has suggested will not work - and if we don't push to have these laws revised, another tragedy will surely occur.