If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
So why does this myth that autistic people lack empathy persist? The reasons are complicated -- a convergence of media, popular culture, and ignorance.
Whatever we imagine is going on without us, can go on without us. In fact, all things either continue, or will wait for us. There is never an extra moment with our children.
We have to be more sensitive to such wake-up calls, before our communities turn into a complete "collection of strangers."
A few months ago, not long after the tragedy in Newtown, Conn., I was at work when my phone rang. It was an automated message from the school that my two older sons attend. I was informed that there had been a shooting at another school a few blocks away.
We all give ourselves labels: liberal, conservative, gun owner, gun reformer, but none of those are instinctive. They are not in our DNA. Perhaps maternal instincts are the key to solving the horrific problem of gun violence.
On this Mother's Day, it is hard not to feel inspired and hopeful by the robust and sophisticated grassroots movement building of moms across America who have organized to fight for safer gun law legislation.
As "Sandy Hook Moms," we often hear the phrase "I can't imagine what you are going through." Well, please imagine it. Imagine what it's like to lose a son or daughter to gun violence and encourage your elected officials to do the same.
Some might ask, why not just stop? You gave a good fight, but why not just return to your old lives and leave this gun business alone? The reality is we don't have a choice.
To my daughters, a bad day simply means "time out" and a meal without dessert. Bad guys look like Darth Vader and the Joker and they don't know about Adam Lanza or Timothy McVeigh. I fear those conversations are coming one day soon.
The media should be ashamed of itself for not taking issue with Congress or the gun lobby and taking them to task. I wish it had conducted equally ceaseless coverage of Sandy Hook to keep the issue alive in the news, but it appears the media doesn't put equally intrinsic value on those twenty innocent children's lives.
Yet wishing can't take away the fact that guns are a powerful presence in American life -- and an equally potent symbol in the American psyche. In search of an outside perspective, I turned to Italian Jungian psychoanalyst Luigi Zoja.
Francine and David moved from New York City to Newtown to raise a family somewhere safe. They could never have imagined that in that quiet place on a Friday morning, just days before Christmas, gunfire would take their younger son's life.
A couple of months ago I was standing in line at a Target in Los Angeles with my husband at my side, wearing my baby boy in his Ergo Carrier on my fro...
It seems the article I started to write and never could finish turned out to be troubling foreshadow for Sandy Hook and the ultimate victory of the gun lobby in Wednesday's Senate bill.
I'm a real-life gun guy. I own a gun shop and I have sold more than 15,000 guns. I'm also a member of the NRA. The NRA won because people like me, people who really know what guns can do when they are irresponsibly used, didn't have a way to make their voices heard.
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