Dear Loveland Magazine Readers,
It’s hard for me to think, type or do anything right now. A teenager murdered his father, then shot two children and an educator at an elementary school in South Carolina this afternoon. It’s my worst nightmare brought back to life. My heart bleeds. Another community will be forever changed.
The images on the news are too similar to that terrible December day. Everything in my body is telling me to shut out the world right now. But for my beautiful butterfly Dylan, for everyone in Townville and for people in communities from Burlington to Baltimore who have had their lives torn apart by gun violence just this week – I can’t stop working to protect children from gun violence tonight.
None of us can. Now more than ever, we must keep working together and doing everything we possibly can to prevent gun violence. I know you feel the same way, so I hope you will help Sandy Hook Promise continue expanding our gun violence prevention programs to train more students and educators how to stop tragedies before they happen. Please, will you make another generous donation right now?
Working to save the lives of others is the only way I know how to deal with the endless pain of losing Dylan. Thank you so much for joining me – there’s truly no way I could do it without you.
Nicole Hockley (Dylan’s mom)
Authorities: School shooter killed father before rampage
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Was this another instance of a young adult on questionable, but legal, pharmaceutical products? In many of the other shootings, the shooters were on legal pharmaceuticals.