Victims of the 2012 assault that killed 20 youngsters and 6 adults condemn lack of progress on gun management.
For survivors and victims’ households of the 2012 Sandy Hook bloodbath in Newtown, Connecticut, the assault on Tuesday on the Robb Elementary College in Uvalde, Texas that left 19 youngsters and two lecturers lifeless punctuated a decade of grief.
Coming simply six months earlier than the 10-year anniversary of the Connecticut mass killing, the Texas assault additionally underscored for survivors turned advocates how little progress had been made in federal gun management reform since a gunman carrying an AR-15 assault weapon entered the Sandy Hook elementary college and killed 20 youngsters and 6 adults.
“I’m sick at what you're going by way of immediately,” tweeted Mary Ann Jacob, who was working as a librarian on the college in Newtown when the 20-year-old gunman attacked.
“I'm transported again to the firehouse that we have been dropped at after the capturing at our college virtually 10 years in the past. I’m so sorry these deaths didn't change our world,” she wrote hours after Tuesday’s assault. “#SandyHook I’m damaged hearted.”
#Uvalde I’m sick at what you're going by way of immediately. I'm transported again to the firehouse that we have been dropped at after the capturing at our college virtually 10 years in the past. I’m so sorry these deaths didn't change our world. #SandyHook I’m damaged hearted.
— Mary Ann Jacob (@Mary_AnnJacob) Might 24, 2022
Nelba Marquez-Greene, whose six-year-old Ana Grace Marquez-Greene was killed at Sandy Hook, wrote on Fb, “Lecturers. Educators. Rational, loving human beings: I'm so rattling sorry. Once more. We've been failed.”
Added Erica Leslie Lafferty, whose mom, Sandy Hook principal Daybreak Hochsprung, was fatally shot on the college, “Ideas and prayers didn’t convey my mom again after she was gunned down in a hallway at #SandyHook”.
“It's past time to take motion,” she tweeted.
I can’t get my head out of the Sandy Hook firehouse. PTSD is brutal. My coronary heart is with #RobbElementarySchool households, school and the group. I’m damaged.
— Erica Leslie Lafferty (@ericalaff) Might 24, 2022
Stalling federal reforms
The 2012 assault despatched shockwaves throughout the nation and galvanised a push for federal gun management measures.
4 months later, it turned clear that the momentum was not sufficient, as watered-down laws to increase federal background checks for firearm purchases failed within the Republican-controlled Senate.
Efforts have been extra profitable on the state stage, with Connecticut increasing a ban on assault weapons, instituting common background checks, and banning high-capacity magazines.
In February, the households of Sandy Hook victims additionally reached a $73m settlement with Remington Arms, the producer of the gun used within the assault. It was the primary time a US gunmaker had been held responsible for a mass capturing.
Nonetheless, a decade for the reason that assault, and a whole lot of mass shootings later, no main federal gun management reforms had handed, together with efforts to ban assault weapons, which have been utilized by the gunmen in each Newtown and Uvalde.
On Tuesday, US Senator Chris Murphy, who represents Connecticut, made an impassioned plea on the Senate flooring.
“This isn’t inevitable, these youngsters weren’t unfortunate. This solely occurs on this nation and nowhere else. Nowhere else do little youngsters go to high school pondering that they could be shot that day,” Murphy mentioned.
“I’m right here on this flooring to beg, to actually get down on my arms and knees and beg my colleagues: Discover a path ahead right here. Work with us to discover a strategy to go legal guidelines that make this much less doubtless.”
Mentioned Senator Richard Blumenthal, the opposite Senator from Connecticut who was in workplace in 2012, “My coronary heart breaks as I re-live the shock and grief of Sandy Hook 10 years in the past, figuring out the infinite ache that can hit these households in Texas”.
In an op-ed in USA At this time, Nicole Hockley, the mom of sufferer Dylan Hockley and CEO of Sandy Hook Promise, a gun management advocacy group launched within the wake of the assault, wrote, “Each time there's a tragedy like this, I'm re-traumatized. I relive the homicide of my son, his classmates and educators. The unhappiness and anger are crushing.”
“On days like immediately, I'm horrified and livid that America has not stopped these lethal assaults on our youngsters,” she wrote. “The one factor that retains me going is figuring out that our nation can transfer ahead and take motion if we have now the braveness and resolve to take action.”
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