Newtown's emblem—the chanticleer, a rooster—watches over our small New England community from its perch as the weathervane of the Meeting House's white steeple. It has several bullet holes in it; a common myth claims that these date from the Revolutionary War, when troops used it for target practice. For those of us who grew up in Newtown, that rooster represents the heart of our town, and those bullet holes—whatever their origin—symbolize the hardships we faced during our three-century struggle to preserve a community where town meetings can still be the means by which we make decisions. On Friday, a young man—about to be committed to inpatient mental care—added twenty-seven more holes to the heart of our town, robbing us of the laughter of twenty innocent children, the lives of six dedicated educators, and a mother whose struggles to raise a child with mental illness may never be fully known.
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