Shooting Kids

My late mentor/guru, William Weaver, who, come to think of it, died just thirty years ago, was an active member of the Heroic Generation, and fought in the Good War against Fascism, serving as a reconnaissance scout behind enemy lines in France and Germany.  Towards the end of the war he helped to liberate two or three of the more infamous Nazi death camps by sniping out the SS guards.  I asked him once, formally, what exactly was the reality of the Nazis and their death camps. Of the latter he said, "Never believe that those stories you hear about hot-lead enemas are not true." Of the former, he said, "A space I could not make was how they could pick a baby up by the heels and dash its brains out against a wall." 

When you see in the news that a little ol' church in Texas has been shot up--26 dead, men, women and children (and even one 18 month old baby)--like I think it was St. Jerome who said, when he heard about the fall of Rome, your tongue cleaves to the roof of your mouth.  But when you read of one five-year-old boy shot five times (miraculously, at last hearing, he was still alive in the hospital, though in critical condition), you weep.  Five times--in the name of God, why?