…soothing words are nice, but maybe it’s time that the two people who want to be President of the United States stand up and tell us what they are going to do about it, because this is obviously a problem across the country. And everybody always says, ‘Isn’t it tragic,’ and you know, we look for was the guy, as you said, maybe trying to recreate Batman. I mean, there are so many murders with guns every day, it’s just got to stop. And instead of the two people – President Obama and Governor Romney – talking in broad things about they want to make the world a better place, okay, tell us how. And this is a real problem. No matter where you stand on the Second Amendment, no matter where you stand on guns, we have a right to hear from both of them concretely, not just in generalities – specifically what are they going to do about guns? I can tell you what we do here in New York. The State Legislature passed the toughest gun laws – some states may say no. That’s okay, what do you want to do? And maybe every Governor should stand up. But in the end, it is really the leadership at a national level, which is whoever is going to be President of the United States starting next January 1st – what are they going to do about guns?

Perhaps it is fitting that the leading employer in this often ignored place is an industry that only whispers its name. Aurora’s central location, high elevation, and clear prairie air long ago moved the Pentagon to locate classified and high-tech radar arrays on the edge of town. As a boy I would look from my bedroom window at the mysterious giant golf ball shapes and picture the Soviet missiles homing in on them. Aurora was certainly on the Kremlin’s map during the Cold War. Since 9/11, that function has been expanded, and now the Buckley Air Force Base employs more than 12,000 people to monitor spy satellites and Predator drones and who knows what all secret business. Defense contractors like Raytheon and Northrup-Grumman employ thousands more. It’s a shame that those extraordinary devices, which can see a man walking in the Yemeni desert or spy a campsite beside the Khyber Pass can’t discern a deranged individual and his growing arsenal in time to prevent a massacre down the street. There would be more people alive in Aurora today, and fewer grieving families. And the overlooked city would still be largely unknown, which, we now see, is not so bad after all.