‘It has become the normal’

Newtown reacts to Calif. mass shooting that killed boy, 6, two others

NEWTOWN – After news in 2018 that 17 people were massacred at a Florida high school, 12 were killed at a California bar, and 11 were murdered at a Pittsburgh synagogue, headlines followed that mass shootings were becoming America’s new normal. This year, with 245 gunfire incidents where at least four people were wounded or killed, according to the Gun Violence Archive, observers are even more concerned that Americans are becoming numb to mass shootings.

“I would almost say it has become the normal — it’s a poor choice of words, but it is probably true,” said Neil Heslin, the father of a firstgrade boy, who was among 26 students and educators slain in the Sandy Hook massacre. “Unfortunately, it is something that seems as though it has become more and more common over the years.”

Heslin was reacting to news on Sunday that 15 people were shot — three of them fatally — when a 19yearold with a rifle broke into the Gilroy Garlic Festival in northern California, and began shooting. One of the victims was a 6yearold boy.

In Newtown, which is home to two nationally known gun violence prevention groups, mass shootings are too close to the

bone for people to become desensitized to gun violence.

“Mass shootings are not normal, and everyone, especially children, has a right to feel safe when visiting any public space,” said Mark Barden, the father of a firstgrade boy slain in the Sandy Hook massacre, and a cofounder and managing director of the Newtownbased nonprofit, Sandy Hook Promise. “We cannot accept mass shootings to be the “new normal” in our country.”

The fact that a 6yearold was shot and killed in Gilroy hit close to home in Newtown.

“It opens up the wound for me again because that boy was roughly the same age as my son who was killed,” Heslin said. “It doesn’t matter whether you are at a garlic fest or in Sandy Hook School or in Parkland (Fla.), or in a church – it could happen anywhere.”

The homegrown nonprofit gun violence prevention group Newtown Action Alliance agreed.

“RIP Stephen Romero, a happy 6year old boy who was murdered in a mass shooting yesterday at the Gilroy Garlic Festival,” wrote Newtown Action Alliance in a social media post. “Our hearts are with his family and all those affected by this horrible tragedy. We will always honor with action those affected by gun violence.”

Heslin said that because some shootings across the country don’t make frontpage news, there is even more tendency for gun violence to fall off some people’s radar.

In Brooklyn on Saturday, for example, 11 people were injured, and one man was killed after a shootout at a community festival.

Police said the shooting may have been gang related.

Cody Glenn / Special to the Chronicle Jewelry vendor Elly Mahmoud from Berkeley, who witnessed the shooting during the Gilroy Garlic Festival, reacts near Gilroy High School on Sunday in Gilroy, Calif.