You remember the promises. We would never forget the horror of Newtown. We would do everything possible to ensure that it could never happen again. We would honor the victims with new laws designed to protect those who most need protection.
Look at the faces. They could be your children, your teachers, your friends. Twenty-six came to a Connecticut grade school one December morning to learn and teach, laugh and play. Instead they were slaughtered, along with the mother of the alleged shooter, and in its grief a nation was united in a desire to be safer, to be better.
As the cameras rolled, the politicians promised. They would join together, across party lines, and they would make government work for the voiceless, not the lobbyists. Trust us, they said, this time will be different — in Washington, in St. Paul and in capitals across the country.
But will it? Did they lie to the mothers and fathers of the children on this page? Did they lie to those who simply want safer schools, workplaces and streets? Congress will begin to answer those questions this week, four months after Sandy Hook. America is waiting.
Never forget the faces. They could be your children, your teachers, your friends. They could be you.
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An editorial of the Star Tribune (Minneapolis).
Read the newspaper version.
