Steve Harvey

As the helicopters continue to hover over our house in the Stony Creek subdivision of South Jeffco, and the last children are ushered by police in small huddles from Deer Creek Middle School to their parents waiting at nearby Stony Creek Elementary School, like everyone else who hears this news, I can't help but recall the Columbine shooting that occurred just a couple of miles from here. On the 10th anniversary of that tragedy, less than a year ago, I wrote the following essay for The Denver Post:

The tragedy at Columbine ten years ago should neither be exploited nor forgotten. It should remain etched into our consciousness as a reminder of where we, as a community, as a state, as a nation, have fallen short in our responsibility to keep our children safe, and as a reminder that we must forever renew and reinforce our commitment to strive mightily to do better.

For me, there is one iconic fragment of that day which wrenches my heart whenever I recall it: The young lady who, huddled under a desk or table, left a message for her father via her cell phone, pleading, "Daddy, I need you. Please come, now."

As the father of a little girl myself, I can't help but imagine my own daughter, a few years in the future, in a similar situation, desparately needing me to be there, and my hearing her pleas too late. The thought terrifies me more than anything else I can possibly imagine.

It is not enough to feel rage, or outrage, or compassion, or despair. It is not enough to make speeches and write op-ed pieces and pray that we do better.

It is not enough to dismiss this as an isolated event that no social policy or collective effort on our part can do anything to prevent from reoccurring.

It is not enough to cling to our tired old platitudes, and sing our tired old refrains. We are all the father, and mother, of that teen-age girl, who heard her pleas too late. We are all the father, and mother, of the next one, whose pleas we can anticipate and prevent from ever needing to be uttered amidst the horror of such a tragedy.

With freedom comes responsibility. Our freedom to bear arms comes with the responsibility, at the very least, to ensure that they are never used to massacre our children.

Effective legally mandated responsibility accompanying the ownership of firearms is not the only, and perhaps not even the primary, problem we must address, but it certainly is one essential component. Clearly, we also want to improve our ability to identify children, and adults, at risk of committing such acts, and intervene before they ever come close to carrying them out,

This should be one aspect of a larger commitment, the commitment to live together as a people, as harmoniously as possible, each enjoying the liberties of his or her own beliefs and values and aspirations, while also striving together to facilitate and accommodate the welfare of all.

We want, I believe, not to be just a collection of atomized individuals jostling each other in the exercise of freedoms untempered by any concern for the rights of others, but to be a community of free people, whose liberty is the well-spring of our vitality rather than the justification of our mutual indifference.

The most vital role of government is to protect the security of each from the violence of others, and never is that duty more sacred and imperative than when it comes to protecting our children. We can, we must, and we will do better.

We owe that to the children we failed to protect, and to the children who count on us today not to fail again.

In this most recent school shooting, a mere block from my home, a mere two hours ago as I write, no one, thank God (and Dr. Benke), was fatally wounded. This time, the heroic teacher who put his students' safety above his own did not pay for that heroism with his life, but instead managed to tackle the gunman and disarm him. But this time, I was the parent walking to pick my child up at her school when I heard the sirens and the commotion, when a neighbor suggested that there might have been a shooting at one of our neighborhood schools, when I broke out into a trot and a sweat not born from my exertions, that little spark of panic blossoming in my gut.

I am not going to use this incident to talk about guns; I know that that is not an issue that the people of my district are ready or willing to confront. Instead, I'm going to talk about community. I'm going to talk about the need for all of us to know all of the children and adults in our communities; for all of us to be role models and mentors and, to whatever extent possible, friends; for all of us to form a net of adult guidance and responsibility that will detect those in trouble, and help them to avoid the tumble into violent answers to the inner-torments of children and adults who fall through the cracks of our disintegrated society.

It's time to make our communities strong again, and our children safe again. That's something that we should all be able to agree on.