I'm a parent

I know many of you are parents too.

As parents, our entire lives are focused on loving our children, raising our children to be good, responsible adults, and protecting them from harm until they get to the point where they can protect themselves.

Whether you are a penguin, a possum or a human, that's what parents do.

Raise 'em, teach 'em, protect 'em, and send 'em off into the world to make their way.

Now imagine that you have pulled off this seemingly impossible task. Some of you already have.

You got them through infancy without them dying from SIDS, or swallowing poison, or tumbling down the stairs and breaking their necks, or being attacked by pit bulls.

You got them through childhood without them being abducted by a child molester, walking into traffic and being hit by a car, or falling down a mine shaft.

You got them through their teen years without them running away, becoming a mother or father, becoming a druggie or an alcoholic. They weren't killed in a teen car accident. They aren't violent or disrespectful. They make good grades. They are actually good, responsible, caring, young adults with common sense and a bright future.

You send them off to college thinking, "they're going to make it. We did good. We can relax a little bit. Our job is almost done."

Then you get the call. It's over. They're gone.

Some sick, twisted, worthless piece of shit took away everything your child had and everything they ever would have had.

For nothing.

They didn't do anything wrong. They were just going about being the wonderful people you raised them to be.

And now they're dead.

How would that feel?

Multiply that by 32.

Multiply that by all of the friends and family that each one of those 32 victims had.

Each and every one of those thousands of grief stricken people had their hearts ripped out, their souls crushed and their dreams destroyed in a senseless act of unspeakable violence.

Try to think, for just a minute how YOU would feel.

Now imagine that EVERY FUCKING TIME you turn on the TV, or open a newspaper, or get on the internet, you are confronted with the image of the "thing" that brought your entire world crashing down around you, and he is pointing a gun directly at you.

Everywhere you turn, you see the very last thing that your precious child saw before they died a horrible, undeserved death. And you haven't even come to terms with the fact that they are gone. You haven't even made arrangements for a funeral. You are still notifying family.

And what is dominating the media? What a wonderful gift the world has lost? Your grief?

Nope.

The monster that committed the crime.

I'm a parent.

You're a parent.

Do they not have any parents working in journalism?

This should not have been a difficult decision. Publishing pictures of the killer pointing guns at a camera while the victims are still sitting in the county morgue waiting to be buried and grieved...

That's not news. That is unspeakable cruelty.