It is our position that keeping children safe is a priority of our nation. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families who lost loved ones in Newtown, Conn. The first questions that come to mind after such a shocking and horrific event are “how and why”? The search for answers has sparked passionate debates on gun control – specifically the accessibility to automatic weaponry, lacking mental health education and services, the muffling of organized religion in an effort to be politically correct and gratuitously violent movies and video games produced by the entertainment industry. Like our schools, Sandy Hook Elementary practiced lockdown drills, tragically it was not enough.

Our country was intended to be a safe haven. This type of tragedy is not supposed to happen in America, specifically, not to innocent children and their teachers at school. It’s time for a national dialogue on all the aforementioned issues.

Must our schools become military fortresses with bulletproof windows and barbed wire fences to shield evil? While changes must take place, we cannot count on a government-legislated panacea. Love, compassion, common sense, morality and civility cannot be bottled or legislated. In the memory of these little angels, we must succeed in the latter.