Right wing blogger Glenn Reynolds jumps out in the front of the pro-gun propaganda effort with a piece for USA Today attacking Gun-Free Zones.

Given that gun-free zones seem to be a magnet for mass shooters, maybe we should be working to shrink or eliminate them, rather than expand them. As they say, if it saves just one life, it’s worth it.

Not the best video quality here, but Andy Partridge’s open letter to God is resonating with me tonight.

Dear God,
Hope you got the letter, and…
I pray you can make it better down here.
I don’t mean a big reduction in the price of beer
but all the people that you made in your image,
see them starving on their feet
‘cause they don’t get enough to eat
from God
I can’t believe in you

Dear God,
Sorry to disturb you, but…
I feel that I should be heard loud and clear
We all need a big reduction in amount of tears
and all the people that you made in your image,
see them fighting in the street
‘cause they can’t make opinions meet
about God
I can’t believe in you

Did you make disease,
and the diamond blue?
Did you make mankind
after we made you?
And the devil too!

Dear God,
Don’t know if you noticed, but…
your name is on a lot of quotes in this book,
and us crazy humans wrote it, you should take a look,
and all the people that you made in your image
still believing that junk is true.
Well I know it ain’t, and so do you,
dear God,
I can’t believe in
I don’t believe in

I won’t believe in heaven and hell.
No saints, no sinners, no devil as well.
No pearly gates, no thorny crown.
You’re always letting us humans down.
The wars you bring, the babes you drown.
Those lost at sea and never found,
and it’s the same the whole world ‘round.
The hurt I see helps to compound
that Father, Son and Holy Ghost
is just somebody’s unholy hoax,
and if you’re up there you’d perceive
that my heart’s here upon my sleeve.
If there’s one thing I don’t believe in

It’s you…
Dear God

We knew this would happen, didn’t we? Here are probably the two most despicable right wing reactions so far to the school massacre in Newtown, Connecticut.

First, Mike Huckabee on Fox News (of course), saying that we shouldn’t be surprised that “schools become a place of carnage” when we have “systematically removed God from our schools.”

HUCKABEE: Well, you know, it’s an interesting thing. We ask why there is violence in our schools but we have systematically removed God from our schools. Should we be so surprised that schools would become a place of carnage? Because we’ve made it a place where we don’t want to talk about eternity, life, what responsibility means, accountability - that we’re not just going to have be accountable to the police if they catch us, but one day we stand before, you know, a holy God in judgment. If we don’t believe that, then we don’t fear that. And so I sometimes, when people say, why did God let it happen. You know, God wasn’t armed. He didn’t go to the school. But God will be there in the form of a lot people with hugs and with therapy and awhole lot of ways in which he will be involved in the aftermath. Maybe we ought to let him in on the front end and we wouldn’t have to call him to show up it’s all said and done at the back end.

The ever-execrable Bryan Fischer echoes this theme, saying God could have protected the children in Newtown, but “God is not going to go where he’s not wanted,” because God is a “gentleman.”

Here’s another thread to keep up with breaking news from the horrific school shootings in Newtown, Connecticut. CNN’s Lisa Desjardins just posted this awful news:

NEWTON: source tells John King that deaths at school are closer to 30 than 20 and that it is “mostly children”.

— Lisa Desjardins (@LisaDCNN) December 14, 2012

The shooter was a 20-year old man, dressed all in black. When police visited the man’s home in New Jersey, they discovered one of his parents fatally shot.

The shooter has been identified as Ryan Lanza. (Correction @ 1:19: AP now confirms that the shooter’s name was Adam Lanza.)

A Facebook page for a “Ryan Lanza” in Hoboken, being circulated all over the Internet, now appears to be unconnected to the shooter:

I’m FB friends with the profile being sent around. This is a real screen grab. twitter.com/MattBors/statu…

— Matt Bors (@MattBors) December 14, 2012

BREAKING: AP source: Suspect in Connecticut school shootings is 24-year-old; younger brother being held. -SS

— The Associated Press (@AP) December 14, 2012

UPDATE: Another relative of the Conn. school shooter has been found dead in his #Newtown home, reports NBC News. bit.ly/Sq6Y0B

— NBC New York (@NBCNewYork) December 14, 2012

It turns out that Ryan Lanza, wrongly identified as the shooter in early reports, is Adam Lanza’s brother. See: Original Reports of Newtown School Shooter’s ID Led to Brother’s Facebook Account.

Shooting Reported at Sandy Hook Elementary School:

State and Newtown police, ambulance, and emergency response personnel responded to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shortly after 9:30 am, Friday, following reports of a shooting. One child was carried from the school by a police officer, apparently seriously wounded. Other injuries are reported, and emergency personnel have set up triage facilities.

The AP news wire is now reporting that the gunman has been killed; no details yet.

This is a really bad one, folks. The Associated Press now reports that 27 people are dead, 18 of them children.

Latest reports are that 26 people are dead, 18 of them children. A second person is reportedly now in custody.

From the Newtown Bee, a heartbreaking photo of children being led from the school: