Sandy Hook call for action remains
Let us never forget their names. The six educators and 20 first-graders who were killed in Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting the morning of Dec. 14, 2012 now are too conveniently shorthanded as the 26 who died that day. Eight years later, that number is still shocking. But it must not overtake the recognition that 26 individuals lost their lives in school that day. Six women who would never return home to their families. Twenty 6-and 7-year-olds who would never outgrow their baby teeth.
Those first-graders should be freshmen in high school right now, learning and being a part of a sports team or drama club or band.
What have we learned in these intervening eight years? What have we done to try to make sure a gunman never again blasts into an elementary school and kills? Not enough.
The families seek good among their pain; some began organizations to address violence, others created foundations for causes dear to their children or for research.
Connecticut enacted tighter gun legislation the spring after the tragedy. But that work is not done. Then-Gov. Dannel Malloy appointed a Sandy Hook Advisory Commission to examine and make recommendations in areas such as school security and mental health. How much was adopted and funded?
The Sandy Hook tragedy motivated a national call to action, to do something about the culture of violence in this country. But, frustratingly, not much has happened. Congress cannot even pass a universal background check bill for gun purchases, a common sense act that a majority of Americans say they support.
The tragedy shook Newtown and Connecticut, the nation and world. But, unbelievably, in the eight years since it has become part of a long list of mass shootings in places such as churches, universities, and a high school in Parkland, Florida.
It should have stamped out the fuse of violence instead of causing it to burn brighter. For that matter, this year, which introduced “lockdown” to our vocabularies, has not stemmed this darkest of trends.
Mass shootings in America have risen by a stunning 35 percent already in 2020, from 417 during the previous calendar year. With anxiety heightened at a fevered pace that runs parallel to gun sales, these numbers seemed doomed to worsen.
There are some numbers that remain frozen. More guns unfailingly equal more homicides.
If you need a reminder of that, just read the 26 names whose lives ended in a Connecticut elementary school that December morning. Their voices, though silenced, still cry for action as loudly as they did eight years ago.