Gyah, I hate that "prayer in school" argument!!  Much trotted-out for any of our woes since 1962.  Not only is it ridiculous, it's incorrect.  Kids can pray in public schools. 

I also read that those wingnuts at Westboro Baptist are planning to picket the funerals of the Newtown children.  Stay classy, zealots.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've always thought the Westboro folks are 'Baptist' in naming only, not affiliated so much with any religious group. Kinda like if I started calling myself a 'Vulcan'. They are their own brand of crazy that goes beyond religion and into trolling-for-effect.

Since the topic of psychiatric disorders has been breached (and not to take away from the gun topic, per se), but when considering access to guns ~ along with age restrictions, psychological testing, liabilty/insurance based on usage, etc. ~  can we throw a doctors note in there, too? We're coming into a generation of children-soon-to-be-adults who have been over-medicated from an early age for all kinds of societal abnormalities, some of which were better diagnosed than others. There are doctors who overly prescribe for ADD, ADHD, and other doctors that will misdiagnose simply for the benefit of a parent and an education system that isn't willing to take the time to work with a child. Doctors that don't communicate with each other, prescribe medications that don't mix well with what another doctor prescribes.

Even the most 'well adjusted' person, all things considered, once they've taken the right cocktail of medications, is the last person I'd entrust with a weapon and the accompanying ammuntion. Regardless their age or previous experience with a weapon. Just like I wouldn't trust them behind the wheel of a vehicle or operating heavy machinery.

The irony for me is that I've long viewed religion as being a baffling form of accepted, institutionalized, mental illness.

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Or, in many cases, mental laziness, unwillingness to attempt to think outside the box they were indoctrinated into as children, and ignorance of the fact that there's no real evidence that what they "believe" is true. I'd say some, those that take it really, really seriously, might have some form of mental illness, but most are going through motions they've been programmed into since childhood and it's all on automatic now.

My cynicism senses Hollywood milking publicity from tragedy.

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As Bill Maher observed, when a plane crashes and 110 people are killed and one survives, that's not a "miracle". That's God blowing a no-hitter in the bottom of the ninth.