Obama’s silent promise: gun control starts here

No town should have to endure what this one has.

The massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Friday leaves a hole deeper than most of us can fathom. The first stages of mourning have been disrupted by a media invasion. Then the president flew in, adding a new layer to the fraught logistics of trauma.

Yet Barack Obama was welcome. Those were no onion tears he shed in the White House on the day of the shooting itself; Obama has daughters. Before taking the podium at last night’s interfaith ceremony here in Newtown he told Governor Dan Malloy that Friday had been the hardest day of his presidency — harder than any budget battle or killing Bin Laden.

Harder also than the three other occasions when he has had to board Air Force One to speak words of solace to a communities torn apart by bullets. Aurora, Colorado, this summer saw the Batman cinema massacre. Last year there was the near-assassination in Tucson of congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

So mourners expected a fine speech with words of consolation and condolence that at least they were not alone. It may have been his best. Delivered without a teleprompter and interrupted only by occasional deep sobs from the audience, Obama’s words reached a level of empathy that reminded some of Ronald Reagan in 1986 after the Challenger disaster and Bill Clinton after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. But above all, Newtown may thank Mr Obama for making this the moment when America addresses its addiction to weapons.

He didn’t mention the words “gun” or “control”, but there was no mistaking the President’s meaning. “We can’t tolerate this any more. These tragedies must end. And to end them we must change,” he intoned. “In the coming weeks I’ll use whatever power this office holds to engage my fellow citizens from law enforcement to mental health professionals to parents and educators in an effort aimed at preventing more tragedies like this. Because what choice do we have? We can’t accept events like this as routine.”

Every act of coming together and healing I have seen in Newtown has been tied to faith. The word “pray” is everywhere, even spelled out in red plastic cups pushed into the chicken-wire fence of another school. I spent part of Friday night in an ice cream parlour with shocked residents invoking God and singing hymns. But what if you are of no faith? What should you do? You show all the same kindness. You put your energy into helping Mr Obama deliver on his promise to make America wake up.