UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism
Presidential Protection of Children From Violence After Newton, Conn. School Massacre, by Jerry Slevin, retired NYC lawyer.
Who is not moved by the appearance of President Obama in tears before a worldwide TV audience as he tried to address the latest horror of a violent and senseless attack on defenseless children at a Newtown, Connecticut elementary school? The world’s most powerful man, and a devoted father of two young daughters, almost powerless, it appears, to protect children from recurring violence. We are all moved to tears over this incomprehensible outrage.
The demands for tighter gun controls are already being raised, as they should be. While Connecticut already has some tight gun restrictions, other states in the USA don’t. So plugging a few holes in a leaking national gun bucket will unlikely deter much gun distribution. And given the unpredictable evil latent in some, one wonders almost despairingly whether this periodic horror of school massacres can be curtailed.
Of course it can be curtailed! It may be impossible to protect children always from violence, but other modern nations have adopted sensible national gun restrictions that have broadly protected children, certainly when compared to the shameful record in the USA. President Obama faces strong opposition to sensible gun restrictions from a gun lobby in Congress, but he must keep pressing to end this gun lunacy. And all in the US must support every effort to strike the right balance between the safety of innocents, especially children, and the rights of responsible gun owners
Many innocent children in the USA sadly also face another form of violence, which often alters their lives negatively and permanently, namely sexual violence. President Obama can and should act decisively here now. He has recently been asked in a White House petition, by a brave woman who lost her brother to sexual abuse, to set up a special national commission to investigate and identify responses to the often hidden epidemic of sexual assaults on children in organizational settings, such as churches, schools and youth groups.
CLICK ON here to read the brief White House petition: http://wh.gov/5aAQ
The number of child victims of sexual assaults far exceeds the number of child victims of gun assaults. The sexual assaults occur both in homes and in organizational settings, like churches, schools and youth groups. The home assaults are usually addressed effectively by state criminal law proceedings. The organizational assaults, often hidden and protected by leaders of powerful groups like some bishops and national officers, are not being addressed effectively generally by states.
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