The Nightmare at Newtown: Open Letter to Our President

We must move forward with resolve.

(SALEM) - The Newtown Massacre of innocent kindergarten kids follows on the heels of the less-heinous mall shootings here in Oregon, where your brother coaches at OSU. Yet both of these tragedies strike home for one and all. This is your moment to help us as a nation out of the proverbial abyss.

In honor of that apostle of nonviolence, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., please utilize his coming birthday week to convene a National Conference on Promoting Nonviolence. Its elements can well include:

1. Examine historic records to ferret out personality traits common to the chain of mass murder perpetrators over the last two decades, including earlier acts of violence.

2. Determine which mental health therapies have shown the greatest effectiveness in subduing violent behavior and their relative success rates.

3. Require future tracking my school officials of repeat-offense aggressive students to determine if they commit domestic violence and/or rapes and homicides as adults.

4. Phase in required conflict resolution training at various high schools around the US per pilot project basis, and report the findings to Congress in 2015.

5. Mobilize the mental health division of the National Institutes of Health to keep track of how weapons were obtained of all mass murder assailants with certified disorders and to what degree counseling had been operative during the 2 years preceding the incident.

Once these findings are generated, both Congress and the American people will surely welcome your sage recommendations for action. We must move forward with resolve.

Respectfully yours, Barry-Lee Coyne, MSW

Founder of The Coping Clinic

Salem, OR. 97304.

NOTE: Lee Coyne has transitioned through three careers: writer, educator, and medical social worker. Forty years of that seasoning brought forth the observations above. Send him an email at: luckycoyne@yahoo.com.

Salem-News.com Community Writer Barry Lee Coyne brings to our readers stories from his combined career of journalism and gerontology, and explains that these paths shaped his values. Lee Coyne once worked for The Civil Service Leader in NY State and covered the Legislature. He has also done features on mediation and arbitration, and believes in healthy skepticism. This writer-therapist often views the world as the masks of comedy and tragedy placed upon the scales of justice. For him, optimism inevitably wins. "Lyrical Lee" has traveled to 30 nations aboard and was once a press intern at the UN. His first published article was in The NY Daily News in '59, dealing with the need for integrity in public office.

He also launched the nation's first tele-conference on health education for shut-ins, created the Eldermentors project in VA to pair retirees with immigrant students needing role models, and was the main catalyst behind CCTV's "Public Public" panel show here in Salem. Lee received his BA in International Relations and an MSW in community organization. He currently serves as a member of Salem's Library Advisory Board. To send Lee an email, please write to this address: luckycoyne@yahoo.com