I allowed my 13-year-old son his first midnight showing with his friends (no older sisters).

As the clock ticked an hour or so past the start time of midnight, a newsbreak flashes across the screen to that of a theater mass shooting. After I picked my heart up from the floor, I see the location as Colorado. I stay riveted to the television waiting for Steven and his friend to arrive home safe at 3 in the morning, dropped off by a dad, all unaware of what is going on. Just adrenalin rush from being first in to see Batman.

Sadly, parents in Colorado who allowed the same might have been met with a different story of a kid not coming home. I don’t like guns. Never have. But I do believe in the right to bear arms. People automatically jump to gun control. We have gun control. This is not the same thing. This man had no reason to have all of this militia. He did not walk into a gun shop and say I will take 3 of that, and 2 of those, and please load me up with enough ammunition to take down a theater of people. This is a sick, crazy madman, who plotted, collected, studied, and readied himself for his own private war. He was troubled, and his mother in San Diego knew immediately that the police had the right person.

So… maybe instead of focusing on gun control, we should focus on the red flags this young man kept sending out, to which it seems no one listened or helped him down from a depressive state, or had him committed. He dropped out of grad school. He did not meet the eyes of neighbors giving a friendly hello. His mother knew he was broken. Did she wash her hands of the situation, and hope against hope that he would snap out of it? Or, did she figure he is 24, and he could live his own life? Who knows. We forget about our neighbors…We don’t even know them. We send our children on their way, with an “It’s his life…I wash my hands of it”… And if we do notice the broken, we are judged for being too nosy or too involved, or it is none of our business. And then when a theater of people gets gunned down, we start to point and shout… GUN CONTROL! Guns don’t kill people. People do. If a madman wants a gun, he will find a gun. No problem. He will actually find many.

So many signs of a very broken man… So sad. The news people are having a parade interviewing those that were in the theater. So distasteful. Survivors were clamoring to get on the major networks… People calmly telling their tales as if a typical day at the movies. 16-year-old girl not even shaken as she retells her story. She was clearly in shock. The madness has to stop. Know your neighbor. Say hello. Reach out. And if you are a parent with a troubled child, get them help. Do what you have to. Gather a village. Do not turn a blind eye. Do not be ashamed, just get them help! I have a 23-year-old and another soon to be 22 years old in grad school. If suddenly they dropped after working so hard to get in, you could bet I would be a mama bear figuring what is wrong. And I would not back off, hoping they snap out of it. Parenting is a lifelong commitment.

Peace be with those who lost loved ones. May God watch over their mourning hearts. And may the souls of the departed be lifted to the kingdom of heaven.

Hug your children a little tighter tonight.