... “and then it was just quiet and all you could hear was the shooting.” It is the silence that seemed particularly haunting. The methodical silence of the killer. The unnatural silence of children. Even the apparent silence of a bystander God. One way we try to beat down death with a stick is by turning helpless horror into a familiar cause. It is discrediting to any cause when its advocates steal someone else’s grief for their own ideological use. But in this case, the search for the political implications of tragedy is unavoidable. ...The first, necessary response to the unacceptable is not to accept it. -Michael Gerson, The Washington Post
