I could give you the numbers attending this sprawling march and rally so that you could quantify the outrage and sadness over the growing body count. I could give quotes from Mayor Bronin or any of the others who spoke on what should be a non-issue. I could fit this Hartford protest into context of the national movement.

But I’m here, sifting through photos, wondering how to report from a dystopia in which there are people actually telling children that their lives do not matter more than the financial interests of the gun lobby; that their lives do not matter more than an archaic line in a document created during another reality; that their lives do not matter more than someone’s gun fetish.

Preventing school shootings may be what motivated most activists to mill about with signs for hours on a Saturday afternoon in Bushnell Park and at the Connecticut State Capitol, but others have been able to connect-the-dots and see that other communities have been impacted by gun violence.  This is not the time to get sidetracked by who has been the most violated, pained, and victimized. A child killed in the classroom and a child killed in the street are both dead children. There’s a common denominator in these scenarios and logical ways to begin to stop the carnage. How ridiculous that keeping kids alive is controversial.