Messenger: Preventing gun violence is not a left-right issue

In her landmark studies of the terminally ill, psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross suggested there are five stages of grief. In no particular sequence, she said, they are anger, denial, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

On Monday, talking with Mark Reardon on his radio show on KMOX about the slaughter Friday at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., I didn't get much past anger.

Talk-show hosts know that shades of gray don't play well on radio, so everything is painted as up vs. down, black vs. white, left vs. right. Mr. Reardon suggested that in the gun debate, everyone on the left wants to seize all the guns. Those on the right stand for the Second Amendment.

That's bunk and I called him on it.

I went straight to anger as I explained my grief over Sandy Hook.

On top of being an American, a human being, a father and grandfather of children the age of the 20 who were shot to death, two days before the tragedy I'd been thinking about what might happen in a real-life school shooting in my community.

I'd taken my wife to lunch. She works at an early learning center. She sits at the front desk, where she stares at a photo of a man who isn't allowed to enter the building. On her desk is a phone that she's supposed to dial if the guy shows up. The police are notified. The building goes on lockdown.

It's scary, and all over the country there are other phones and photos of other guys and other school secretaries, teachers, principals and custodians who assume that fearsome responsibility every day.

People like Dawn Hochsprung, Victoria Soto, Rachel Davino, Anne Marie Murphy, Lauren Rousseau and Mary Sherlach, the adults who were killed at Sandy Hook.

On Wednesday, when I asked about the guy's picture, my wife joked about it. People refer to the guy as her "husband," she said. My picture and that of our 5- and 7-year-old kids is off to the side.

I raised my voice on KMOX as I told Mr. Reardon this story. This time, I said, our nation must do better than simplistic arguments.

Talking about guns, whatever one's views, doesn't always have to be about left and right. It's not about the National Rifle Association vs. everybody else. It's not about people who love the Constitution vs. those who want to shred it.

If we as a nation can't agree that we must do whatever we can to make sure our children are safe, then we have lost our souls. Surely, there is some common ground we can stand on to guard against evil.

This week, all over the country, people have begun seeking some kind of consensus. They're not waiting for an official debate that already suffers from knee-jerk, left-and-right pulling and pushing.

St. Louis County Police Chief Tim Fitch sent his cops to schools throughout the county, where they talked to principals and reassured parents by their mere presence.

Monday night, at a school concert in Wildwood, the mother next to me said that she had called the principal concerned that parents picking up kids in the after-school "Adventure Club" were allowed to walk in without being buzzed through a locked door.

By the end of the day, that had changed. And a new intercom system was being considered for elsewhere in the school.

We can do something. And already, we are.

Mr. Fitch raised a few eyebrows on Monday by suggesting that perhaps authorities in schools that can't afford security officers should get firearms training and have access to weapons.

Frankly, I don't like the idea. I figure if we can have security guards at banks, we can have them protecting our children. But I'm also not willing to toss Mr. Fitch's idea aside without studying it.

Here's what we must not do: We must not reach the stage of grief called acceptance. Sandy Hook can't just be something else for the left and right to argue about.

Our resolve must be to fix the problem, as one nation, undivided and unwilling to accept the slaughter of innocents.

Tony Messenger is the editorial page editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.