Thread: Sandy Hook families rip call to release crime scene photos

Sandy Hook families rip Michael Moore's call to release crime scene photos

By Joshua Rhett Miller
Published March 15, 2013
FoxNews.com

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  Filmmaker Michael Moore’s proposal to release crime scene photographs from Sandy Hook Elementary School would be a 'horrendous offense' to relatives of victims, Dorrie Carolan, co-president of the Newtown Parent Connection, Inc., told FoxNews.com. (AP)

Filmmaker Michael Moore’s suggestion that showing crime scene photos of the children slain at Sandy Hook will hasten the demise of the National Rifle Association is not getting rave reviews in the shattered Connecticut community.
The left-wing social critic wrote in his blog Wednesday an item titled "America, You Must Not Look Away (How to Finish Off the NRA)," in which he recommended releasing the undoubtedly gruesome photos of the 20 children killed on Dec. 14, 2012, some of whom were shot up to 11 times. Moore said the fact that Americans have “done nothing to revise or repeal” the Second Amendment “makes us responsible.”
“ … and that is why we must look at the pictures of the 20 dead children laying (sic) with what's left of their bodies on the classroom floor in Newtown, Connecticut.”
Moore predicted a parent of a child killed in the horrific elementary school massacre or another high-profile mass shooting would make pictures available, adding “and then nothing about guns in this country will ever be the same again.”

“For the families and the community, we just want to get back to a normal life and that would be a horrendous offense to the families."

- Dorrie Carolan, Newtown Parent Connection

Jeremy Richman, whose 6-year-old daughter Avielle was killed in the attack by gunman Adam Lanza — a 20-year-old, mentally-troubled local man who later killed himself as police responded — said Moore’s idea is off-base.
“I would be very strongly against that,” an incredulous Richman said when being informed of Moore’s idea.
Another parent of a 6-year-old boy killed in the attack, in Newtown, Conn., was upset that such an idea would be proposed.
“You can imagine what my reaction to that is,” the outraged mom said, declining any further comment.
Several other parents of young victims declined to comment when reached by FoxNews.com. Attempts to reach Veronique Pozner, who took Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy by the hand to show him her son's body at his open-casket funeral in December, were unsuccessful.
Pozner later told a reporter that she "owed it" to her son, the youngest of the Newtown victims, when asked why she wanted Malloy to see the damage to Noah Pozner's body.
"I owed it to him as his mother — the good, the bad, the ugly," Pozner told the Stamford Advocate. "It is not up to me to say I am only going to look at you and deal with you when you are alive, that I am going to block out the reality of what you look like when you are dead. And as a little boy, you have to go in the ground. If I am going to shut my eyes to that I am not his mother. I had to bear it. I had to do it."
Moore’s proposal would be a “horrendous offense” to relatives of the Sandy Hook tragedy, Dorrie Carolan, co-president of the Newtown Parent Connection, told FoxNews.com.
“For the families and the community, we just want to get back to a normal life and that would be a horrendous offense to the families,” Carolan said. “There’s no need for any of that.”
Carolan, who knows several of the victim’s families, said she could not imagine anyone connected to the mass shooting who would consider Moore’s idea to be a “positive” development.
“It’s going to be a long healing process and to dredge up pictures of the crime scene would not be a good thing,” she told FoxNews.com. “We want to remember the little angels as they were, with their happy expressions and faces and you want to think of the teachers trying to hold them safe and not to see the pictures of their bodies. I think it would be terrible.”
Most of the families in the “very, very close” community have begun participating again in activities in and around Newtown, Carolan said, but the cyclical grief process is far from over.
“When you see the families, you want to acknowledge them, you want to hug them, but you don’t want to pry,” she said. “You don’t want to bring it up to them. So nobody really knows what to do. Nobody really knows what we should be doing … But to dredge up pictures would just take us backwards.”
In the weeks following the attack, several parents spoke out on the gun debate, with many saying the shootings cried out for new gun control laws and others saying such measures were not the answer.
When Neil Heslin, whose son Jesse was among the victims, spoke at a Connecticut legislative hearing on gun control, he challenged those in attendance to explain why citizens should be allowed to own assault weapons.
“Not one person can answer that question,” he said, after beseeching the crowd to reply.
When a member of the audience answered: ”Second Amendment shall not be infringed,” several media outlets reported that the distraught father had been “heckled” by gun rights advocates, though the videotape showed that was not the case.




Read more: Sandy Hook families rip Michael Moore's call to release crime scene photos | Fox News

Michael Moore And The Sandy Hook Victim Photos: Why The End Doesn’t Justify His Means
March 15, 2013

COMMENTARY | Controversial filmmaker Michael Moore has the second amendment and the NRA is his crosshairs, so to speak. His latest rhetorical bullet regards the photos of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims.


Moore believes that they should be released to the public, because being exposed the gruesome images is the only thing, if anything can, that will galvanize Americans into revising or repealing the second amendment and kissing the NRA goodbye for good.
In a lengthy op-ed for The Huffington Post titled “America, You Must Not Look Away (How to Finish Off the NRA),” Moore argues that Americans have “done nothing to revise or repeal” the constitutional right to bear arms, which “makes us responsible.”
“ … and that is why we must look at the pictures of the 20 dead children laying (sic) with what’s left of their bodies on the classroom floor in Newtown, Connecticut,” he writes.
A very honest column written by Tommy Christopher for Mediaite titled “I Want Michael Moore To be Wrong About Newtown Crime Scene Photos,” the author concedes that Moore makes a good argument for the release of the Sandy Hook victim photos, but argues that “releasing the photos without their permission would badly undercut the desired effect.”
Christopher’s central disagreement with Moore regards the notion that such photos should be published by the media without permission from the parents of slain Newtown children. It’s a notion that Moore doesn’t clearly support in his argument, and he continually makes reference to his hope that “someday a Sandy Hook mother” will say “I just want the world to see.”
Unfortunately for Moore, he seems very unlikely to get that support. Many of the Newtown parents have spoken at committees and legislative hearings about gun control, the central issue in the debate over Newtown. They seem to be split on that issue. Many see the Newtown shooting as a clear call for greater gun control, while others don’t think that such legislation is the answer.
One thing almost all of the Newtown parents agree on is that they don’t want the Sandy Hook victim photos to ever go public.
“I would be very strongly against that,” Jeremy Richman, who lost his 6-year-old daughter Avielle, told Fox News of Moore’s proposal.
Another parent of a 6-year-old boy killed in the attack was outraged by the very idea.
“You can imagine what my reaction to that is,” the mother said, declining to comment further.
Indeed, the only Newtown parent who could even be arguably open to the idea is Veronique Pozner, the mother of Noah Pozner, the youngest victim in the Newtown tragedy.

In the wake of the Newtown shooting, Veronique described the state of her little boy’s remains as she struggled to bury him.

“He had thick, shiny hair, beautiful long eyelashes that rested on his cheeks. He looked like he was sleeping. But the reality of it was under the cloth he had covering his mouth there was no mouth left. His jaw was blown away. I just want people to know the ugliness of it so we don’t talk about it abstractly, like these little angels just went to heaven. No. They were butchered. They were brutalized. And that is what haunts me at night.”

Haunting words indeed, but Veronique’s account was not political. It transcended politics. The philosophical musings of a mother who has inexplicably lost her child, the painful aching hollow of his absence, and the strength she found to lay him to rest.
Because of that, Veronique’s words and her actions should not be retroactively made to pull a plow for a left-wing agenda. Unless she wants them to.
This is underscores the danger of Moore’s overzealous initiative. He can be upset over the Newtown victims and even a little bit self-righteous about it. But when you strip away all of the appeal to emotion, Moore is dubiously proposing that we use gruesome images of slain children, blown to bits by bullets from an assault rifle, as political props. Human shields to suit his radical personal vendetta.

The problem with the gun control conversation? Everyone is lying about what they want.
Michael Moore (and even, to a degree, Senator Dianne Feinstein), want a world without guns. It’s a beautiful thought, and I think everyone, gun owner or otherwise, would agree that it would be lovely to live in a world without violence. Remember, most gun owners cite “personal protection” as their reason for owning a gun. Comedian (and noted liberal) Bill Maher is himself a gun owner, but disdainfully so. He owns a gun because he feels like he has to.
The right, including the NRA, really don’t know what to do with Sandy Hook. They hate that it happened. They’re human. They feel the loss. But they don’t want to admit any of it, because they fear they’ll risk losing a demographic or appearing “soft” on the issue of guns.
Only a precious few in the middle, or perhaps even the so-called “silent majority,” see what needs to be done even if they can’t find words to explain why.
Do we have a problem with violence, not with guns, but with violence, in America?
Yes.
Should we keep guns from finding their way into the hands of criminals and the mentally ill?
Yes.
Could that be accomplished through background checks, a basic requirement even for the “right” to pursue meaningful employment?
Yes.
Should responsible gun owners live without fear of punishment for a recreational right that they frequently exercise and enjoy?
Yes.
Do many current political proposals regarding the issue of gun control willingly or naively expect responsible gun owners to abide by laws designed and inspired by our most horrifying and monstrous criminals, and treat them rhetorically with equal measure?
Yes.
Should we see the Sandy Hook victim photos? Is that really what it will take to inspire action on gun control?
No.
A gun-free world can only really be accomplished after we find ourselves in a violence-free world. Because there’s nothing you can do about that, liberal activists like Michael Moore attack symptoms, not cause. You’ve heard it before. But think about it.
You need a triple bypass. Should we scrub up together and intervene surgically in order to save your life? Or should we perhaps consider removing your heart? What if it would prevent you from heart disease in the future?
Lastly, can we videotape it?
http://www.inquisitr.com/574280/michael-moore-and-the-sandy-hook-victim-photos-why-the-end-doesnt-justify-his-means/