Nina Gilfert | From the Porch Steps: Protecting the most vulnerable

Have you ever felt like the world has opened up beneath you and if you don't hold on tight you will fall into an abyss? My personal world is just fine, thank you, but when I turn on the television I am confronted with just the opposite.

How are you supposed to deal with the fact that children are being shot at somewhere and you are helpless to respond? How do you watch the news about the Ukraine and accept the fact that the innocent citizens there are being slaughtered and those who survive are forced from their homes and the sick and evil man responsible is being protected by his countrymen as a hero?

Here on this beautiful mountainside I live with my oldest son and his wife in perfect comfort and contentment. It is easy to shut out the ugliness in the world until you turn on your television and listen to the unbelievable account of a young man who gets himself a gun with the sole purpose of murdering children.

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How can this happen in a free country, a country where we know our neighbors and move freely about our world; a world where we have a police force that is supposed to protect the vulnerable?

How do you accept the fact that there were police nearby when this terrible business was happening?

Depraved people walk the streets and byways of our country unknown to us, the ordinary citizen. Sometimes police are aware of the stressors like possible assailants and can do nothing until a crime has been committed.

They are confined by the law just as we are. They have to have incontrovertible evidence that some evil is about to be committed before they can act.

We no longer have institutions where known crazies can be confined. They were closed long ago because they were considered too cruel to be part of a civilized country. Now we are beginning to wonder if there isn't a middle of the road solution that would have prevented a disturbed young man with murder on his mind from shooting up a school.

Perhaps one of those institutions that we so abhor could have kept him detained in a safe environment. Because we were not wise, 19 good people have met their early demise. Can we prevent this from happening again?

I spoke with my good friend Bill Geringswald this morning about being depressed. He asked the cause and I told him that it has nothing to do with my own situation but the situation in which others find themselves.

I'm thinking about the bereaved parents of those children who were killed at Robb Elementary School. They must have wondered if there was anything they could have done to prevent this horror from happening.

Bill agreed that it would have taken a very powerful intuit moment to anticipate what this misguided young man did.

When our children leave for school in the morning, lugging a backpack perhaps up the steps of the school bus, our biggest worry is for them to obey their teachers and listen to what is being taught. We are also concerned that what is being taught is truth and the American way.

This being the case, we are content. We are somewhat concerned when we learn about plans to teach sex education to kindergartners and first and second grade students. This certainly can be delayed until fourth grade, when they are more socialized and mature.

Any misconceptions they may have before that are not your biggest concern. They are still more interested in dolls and wagons and maybe television games.

I have two great-granddaughters just beginning to attend school. Their education was somewhat stalled because of Covid, but sex education was not as vital as reading and writing and socialization.

Melanie is teacher's little helper and Clara is now being homeschooled very successfully. Now that most school is out for the summer we can put that worry on the back burner and hopefully make plans for a more safe and sound school system next year.

Now we can confine our worrying to things like the open southern border, where there is supposed to be some semblance of control and just about anyone can come in.

Nina Gilfert can be reached at ngporch@gmail.com

This article originally appeared on Daily Commercial: From the Porch Steps: We must protect our children