David, just FYI, I have seen reports that there is a Facebook page of a different guy with the same name that some people are taking for the shooter's.

I headed to the Salt Lake Tribune and knowingly dived into the comments on the story. The Trib is the local "liberal" paper, and I use it for a gauge of what passes for reasonable thought around here. there are the usual "If the teachers were armed!" and such comments, but a lot of gun owners are saying "Maybe it is too easy for people to get guns" and "Why is this worse in America when everyone in Switzerland has guns too?"

One person said "It's not gun control we need, it's mental health control", which is a glib way of saying what I'm thinking. Not enough people get the help they need, and too many people refuse to admit they need help. Then they get angry at the world, then they reach for their gun.

Thankfully, most people are jumping down the throats of those advocating for armed citizens who can return fire in cases like this. More people are saying "Yeah, right, untrained people who are scared to death are going to start throwing more bullets around, that's going to improve the situation."

That said, I'm not going just yet over to the comments on the conservative papers. Though there may be some very shaken people over there, as well.

Also, Casper at least is old enough that even if we skip NPR tonight she will hear about it from friends. Which means I have to talk to her about it. Ugh.

I'm dreading that one too.

mac is going to be freaked the fuck out. and last night was the first night in months that he went to bed without me in the room. of course, tonight I am just as likely to want to snuggle him, so no real problem.

I don;t want to talk about it with them! I want to talk about it with you guys!

Hopefully "let's not talk about this in front of the kids" will keep them at bay.

I still haven't forgotten trying to explain what was happening on 9/11 to Jake and Ben. When you can't understand something, it's so hard to reassure your kids that it's all going to be okay.

The crazy thing is it looks like his beef was with his parents and the schoolkids were just collateral damage. I guess he wanted to go out in a blaze, make his anguish known. A kind of burn down the world narcissism.

I feel like something is wrong with me that after the initial horror, a small voice is my head was thankful that it didn't happen in Colorado.

As much as I love working from home, today I kinda wish I was in the office and it wasn't so easy to get updates on the horror. K-Bug made me change the channel which is probably a good thing.

One person said "It's not gun control we need, it's mental health control", which is a glib way of saying what I'm thinking.

I feel like I'm having this argument all over the place - people with psychiatric disorders are far more likely to be the victims of violent crimes than they are the perpetrators, and so far there is no evidence that the shooter here was a victim of poor mental health treatment. How does this line of thinking help anyone?

I'm watching the niece so there will be no television for now... which is probably good.