In Memoriam: Remembering Hadiya Pendleton, 15

The girl in the video denouncing gun violence is 11. A short four years later, she was gunned down just a week after performing in the inaugural ceremonies for President Obama in Washington, D.C. In a

 Hadiya had just finished her final exams at King Prep High School, where she was a sophomore, and was hanging out with friends from the school's volleyball team when she was gunned down in a park in the 4400 block of South Oakenwald Avenue. Thursday afternoon, police announced the reward for information leading to an arrest in the shooting had increased to $24,000, up from $11,000 announced Wednesday.

As the face of Hadiya joins the list of children massacred by gun violence at Sandy Hook Elementary, the National Rifle Association (NRA) led by the clueless and tone-deaf Wayne LaPierre, is assembling its own rogue's gallery of poster children in the defense of massacres.

Meet Christian Philip Oberender (pictured to the right). The NRA wants him to have access to guns. All types of guns. As many as he'd like. At 14, Oberender murdered his mother in a shotgun ambush in the family rec room in 1995.



Despite killing his mother with a firearm, having been  committed to a state hospital as mentally ill and dangerous more than a decade ago, he was able to obtain a permit to purchase firearms last May. And boy did he purchase some firearms. When sheriff's deputies arrived at his home after reading Oberender's chilling rant on Facebook, they found 13 guns, including semi-automatic rifles, an AK-47, a Tommy gun, assorted shotguns and handguns, including a .50-caliber Desert Eagle.

NRA CEO LaPierre thinks it's just great that Oberender has amassed such an arsenal. He thinks this guy should have even more. This despite the fact that this convicted felon recently scribed the following a month ago to the mother he murdered so long ago:

"I am so homicide,'' it said in broken sentences. "I think about killing all the time. The monster want out. He only been out one time and someone die."

This is the battle we who embrace sensible gun control are waging. And these are the unhinged, irrational people against whom we battle. It will be a tough uphill slog, but I and millions of my more sane fellow Americans find unfettered access to assault-style weapons and increasingly massive ammunition clips disturbing.  We will not forget Sandy Hook and we definitely will not forget Hadiya.

Rest in peace, little one. The cavalry has arrived.