Meghan Cox Gurdon: It could not be Newtown, a haven since childhood

Connecticut is a small state, but even a small state is a big place. When the news came through on Friday morning that there had been a school shooting in Connecticut, the first thought that flashed through my mind was “It won’t be Newtown. It’ll be somewhere else.”

It wouldn’t be Newtown because, in the way of the magical thinking so tempting in the face of tragedy, I have loved the town since I was a child. It had to be somewhere else. The murder of children must surely happen in an ugly place among disaffected people, amid the pathologies of deracinated modern life.