Members of ‘Sandy Hook club’ grieve once again after killings

NEWTOWN — Families who lost loved ones in the Sandy Hook shooting reacted with sadness and anger as news of the nation’s deadliest shooting emerged from Las Vegas, where a gunman killed 58 people and injured hundreds of others attending a concert.

“Feeling a lot of pain for yet another community as it joins our Sandy Hook club while Congress does nothing,” said Sandy Hook attorney and bicycle activist Monte Frank on Twitter. “We are all sitting ducks.”

The Newtown Action Alliance, a gun violence prevention group that formed after the 2012 slaying of 26 first-graders and educators at Sandy Hook School, urged people to call on Congress for gun safety reform.

In response to President Donald Trump’s tweet offering “warmest condolences and sympathies to the victims and families of the terrible Las Vegas shooting,” the alliance tweeted, “Thoughts and prayers are not enough. You must join the Democrats to pass a ban on assault weapons.”

Erica Lafferty, the daughter of slain Sandy Hook Principal Dawn Hochsprung, agreed.

“I’d love to partner to form a plan to stop these senseless killings,” Lafferty wrote in a tweet. “I can offer more than thoughts and prayers.”

The families were reacting to news that a gunman on the 32nd floor of a Las Vegas hotel-casino fired on an outdoor country music concert Sunday night, killing at least 59 people and wounding 515.

It ranks as the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

Nelba Marquez-Greene, who lost a daughter in the Sandy Hook massacre, said the loss was irreversible.

“You don’t recover from this — as a mother, brother, father. You manage,” she posted on Twitter. “But there is no recovery. I am heartbroken.”

Marquez-Greene went on to add later in the morning, “I don’t know what to say besides this is on every congressperson who said in ’13: There is simply nothing we could do.”

And again: “Every day, I am stunned by the level of trauma (direct or vicarious) congress is willing to make us suffer through.”

The family of slain Sandy Hook teacher Victoria Soto put out a statement to the grieving families.

“Our prayers go out to the families to heal from this horrific event,” read the statement. “We don’t have to live like this.”

The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, the Associated Press reported, but law enforcement officials said during a news conference there was no indication the gunman had ties to a terrorist group overseas.