Michael F. Shaughnessy
Eastern New Mexico University
Portales, New Mexico

I thought the day was over. Then on the Internet, I read about the fact that 3 girls were killed in an Amish school shooting The incident occurred in NICKEL MINES, Pennsylvania. I have never been there, but have been to Scranton and Olyphant, Pennsylvania.

Apparently someone with two guns and anger entered a one-room Amish schoolhouse and sent the boys and adults outside. He then barricaded the doors and shortly thereafter opened fire on a dozen girls, killing three of them before committing suicide. Several others have been wounded. The assailant apparently had a good number of weapons and several hundred rounds of ammunition.

I had written last week about the need to secure our schools and our borders.

I still have to investigate the shooting of a principal named John Klang in Cazenovia, Wisconsin and get all the facts on that.

Losing a principal is a loss. Losing our children to violent strangers, lunatics and maniacs is a further loss. I am not sure what school boards are going to do. I am not sure who will replace the slain principal. I mourn and grieve for the loss of an educational leader, who was probably trying to keep order and discipline in his school.

I can only extend more sympathies and condolences to the families and friends of these girls in Amish country. I can only extend my heart and prayers to the friends and family and faculty of Principal John Klang and to all those who were affected by this tragedy.

I am sorry for the girls who were killed in NICKEL MINES, Pennsyvania.

I believe that they had hoped for a quiet peaceful existence. They did not deserve this. They had their entire lives in front of them.

Our students and our principals deserve better. They deserve to be safe.

How this will be accomplished, I do not know. I can only hope that these incidents will stop and that steps will be taken to make our schools safe and secure, and places of learning.