Sandy Hook got me to thinking about the Chatooga river

[phantom power]

On the Chatooga river, there is a rapid named Crack in the Rock, where I used to kayak every so often. The regulars there told me a story about a teenager who drowned in that rapid, and how his parents lobbied long and relentlessly to have that rapid cemented in, or dynamited out, or otherwise dismantled to make it safer.

As I got older, I came to realize that this was one particular example of how when parents lose a child, they will do any goddamned thing to salvage some kind of meaning out of horror and keep on living. And one of the various ways that sometimes plays out is that they dedicate the rest of their lives to eradicating the thing that killed their child. Metaphorically adopting the world's children, in a way.

With that in mind, I think it's likely that Sandy Hook will result in some fierce lifelong gun control advocates.

[Lint Head]

1. I agree with what you are saying. The only thing I have a comment about is that

Rivers and streams are natural and one takes a chance every time they transverse one. To destroy a natural formation because that chance was taken and there was failure is like filling in the Grand Canyon because people have fallen off the steep cliffs. Guns are manufactured and not created by nature. Though philosophically one could argue we are nature so guns are natural. That aside. One takes a chance every time a gun is fired. Some times the chance of failure is high. Some times it is low. Depending on the condition of the firearm or whether you are doing the aiming or it's aimed at you. The issue or question I think people are struggling with is how to eliminate the high chance of failure. The odds are against someone faced with a rapid fire large magazine weapon. Society needs to decrease the odds against that chance of failure.

[phantom power]

2. agreed, I wasn't intending to make any comparison between rivers and guns, per se...

more just an observation about human nature, and how parents react to this particular kind of parental nightmare.

Regarding efforts to 'tame' rapids, I don't approve of it. Nature is not disneyland, and rapids are not engineered amusement rides. But although I'd oppose them, I can't really find it in my heart to blame those parents. That kind of grief can make you insane.

[Lint Head]

3. It's a natural reaction for the parents. I love the Chattooga! I'm from S.C. and travel by there

often going to S.C. from Tennessee. My Father, Uncles and Grandfather were raised around the Tugaloo which the Chattooga feeds into.