A ny tragedy almost instantaneously provokes two emotion-laden thoughts: “Oh, those poor people,” and “Can that happen here?”

Last Friday’s school shooting in Newtown, Conn., was all the more shocking because it involved the most senseless of senseless acts of violence and the victims included 20 children, the most innocent of innocent bystanders. Unlike the survivors of a hurricane or tsunami, the families and friends of these victims don’t need clothing or food, they need something that can’t be delivered in a Red Cross box — comforting.