Another day in Newtown. Kids aren't talking. Parents are sick to their stomachs. All are frustrated.

Monday, just after 2pm, Newtown schools went into lock-down after a call to an elementary school with an implied threat. Once again, children were huddled into dark closets in fear. As news spread around town, parents assumed the worst.

In Sandy Hook, assuming the worst means reliving the unspeakable tragedy of 14 December 2012. I knew my daughter had gone home early this week, so when I heard the news Monday, selfishly I did not have the same panic I felt on 12/14. But I reflected that that evening, another conversation that should not ever occur with an 11-year-old might take place after she'd heard what had happened. Or she'd stay silent for a period of time, as she did following 12/14.

In a small town trying so hard to heal, it does not take much to stir up the raw emotion that is still so close to the surface.

In light of the reaction Monday's event caused, I cannot imagine what would happen if the photographs of our 20 first-graders and six educators riddled with bullets were made public. So, when the Connecticut general assembly voted to prevent the disclosure of the photographs and audio describing the scene at the Sandy Hook School on 14 December, the town breathed a collective sigh of relief. They had spared us.

Since 12/14, as I have become immersed in the fight for a safer society, I have thought a lot about our constitution. While I am a firm believer in the bill of rights, I recognize that the rights granted to us by our Founding Fathers are not unlimited. I have argued countless times since 12/14 that, just as you cannot yell fire in a crowded theater under the first amendment, you cannot bring a bazooka into one either under the second amendment.

None of our freedoms – the right to free speech, to assemble, to a free press and to bear arms – is limitless. Reasonable restrictions are necessary to protect others from being severely hurt, to allow for the protection of our most fundamental rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

We needed our government to protect us from making public the photographs of our 26. The harm to this community and beyond would have been too much. Think about the siblings of the slain children who would see photographs of their brothers and sisters, as they were when the police arrived in the school. Think about the children who were in that school on 12/14 and escaped. The first responders and teachers leaving the school made sure the children closed their eyes to be shielded from that unimaginable scene. Releasing the photographs would undo that in a permanent way.

Moreover, it would expose all of the other children of Newtown, and everywhere else, to the horror, which was so bad that many of the first responders have not been able to come back to work. Think about the parents of survivors who are struggling to cope. Think about the parents who lost their children, and how they deserve to have them remembered.

In the weeks and days leading up to the vote, families of those murdered at the Sandy Hook School pressed legislators to protect the photos from being made available to the public. As a lawyer representing someone who lost a child, I have a death certificate in my file, which I do not believe his mom has seen. I have yet to read that one document without it causing me to quietly weep. That one piece of paper – a name, an age "six" and a cause of death – starkly depicts that darkest of days.

These death certificates were not included in the legislation, and eventually may become public. While the Connecticut general assembly decided to draw the line there, there is no question that anything more would have too severe an impact on so many just trying to move forward.