http:// thebaltimorepost.com/former-white-house-staff-emails-reveal-private-thoughts-amid-one-of-the-nations-most-horrific-school-tragedies/
Former White House staff emails reveal private thoughts amid one of the nation’s most horrific school tragedies
POSTED BY ANN COSTANTINO ON 23RD MAY 2018
When tragedy struck a Newtown, Connecticut community five and a half years ago, an unimaginable nightmare unfolded while the country looked on in horror.
Heavily armed, 20-year-old Adam Lanza shot his way through a plate glass window adjacent to the entrance of Sandy Hook Elementary School, stoically proceeded down a hallway, and systematically took the lives – one by one – of 20 first graders and six school personnel with a Bushmaster Model XM15-E2S rifle.
But even before victims were laid to rest after their fatal shootings, former U.S Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Chicago’s Mayor Rahm Emanuel exchanged messages on how to frame the tragedy, politically.
During a roughly 10 minute period, the native Chicagoans exchanged seven messages two days following the massacre, in which Mayor Emanuel, who had previously served as President Barrack Obama’s chief of staff, advised Secretary Duncan on what position he should take on the Sandy Hook shootings.
At 6:57PM EST on December 16, 2012, Duncan wrote to Emanuel in a message titled “CT shootings.”
Duncan asked the Chicago mayor, “What are your thoughts?”
Five minutes later, Emanuel responded, “Go for a vote this week before it fades. Tap peoples emotion. Make it simple assault weapons.”
Duncan responded immediately, “Yup- thanks.”
“When I did brady bill and assault weapons for clinton we always made it simple. Criminals or war weapons,” Emanuel said in the email to Duncan.
“Gun show loophole?” Duncan responded. “Database? Cop-killer bullets? Too complicated?” he said.
“Cop killer maybe,” Emanuel responded. “The other no.”
The exchange ended when Duncan concluded with, “Got it.”
Two days after the Sandy Hook massacre, the former education secretary and the sitting mayor of Chicago were already discussing a national strategy.