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ACCORDING TO LIZ - On December 14, 2012, a mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School shocked Americans. Twenty-year-old Adam Lanza shot and killed 20 children ages six and seven, along with six adult staff members, then put a bullet in his own head. Five minutes, 154 shots.
Before driving to the school, he had murdered his mother… but left no indication of why he committed any of these crimes.
His actions did shake a nation too long complacent with mass murder into revisiting the issue of gun regulation but, despite endless handwringing and prayers, not much has changed since then. Certainly not for the better.
Despite the outstanding efforts of Sandy Hook Promise, the organization founded by loved ones of those victims, to “stop school shootings, prevent gun violence and create safer schools, homes, and communities,” the carnage continues.
Just four years after the Sandy Hook tragedy, the then soon-to-be president used his campaign rallies to stir up violence against anyone who stood in his – and their – way. And it wasn’t only guns they used: driving cars into crowds, hateful language, and bullying proliferated.
Magnifying an environment where guns were not only tolerated but their use celebrated.
Then, in his 2021 Christmas Tweet, Republican Thomas Massie of Kentucky posed his smiling family with tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of mostly automatic and semi-automatic weapons, begging Santa to please bring the ammo.
Lauren Boebert responded in like form, posed with her four young sons brandishing equivalent firepower and promising to have Massie’s “six.”
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez countered with a Tweet more on point with the season: “Tell me again where Christ said, ‘use the commemoration of my birth to flex violent weapons for personal political gain’?”
Sandy Hook Promise has fought at national, state and local levels for expanded background checks, restrictions on large capacity magazines, and better oversight of ammunition sales. Some campaigns have been more successful than others but, in every instance, have increased awareness of the crisis.
But has had little luck in reducing the slaughter.
And, as of 2019, firearms fatalities became the leading cause of death for children and teenagers, a sorrowful statistic that persists to this day.
Between 2009 and 2018, the United States had 57 times as many school shootings as any other high-income nation. And it’s not slowing down.
Wisely, Sandy Hook Promise also invests time and energy in expanding research into the causes of and symptoms of violence and developing applications to identify and intervene before potential shooters can act out their gruesome fantasies.
It continues to push for suicide prevention reform, to meaningfully address root causes of social isolation, and build the robust mental health resources necessary to ensure those in distress have access to needed services.
Sandy Hook Promise has also gone after the firearms companies responsible for targeting youth, glamorizing gun sales and use, often with aggressive and sexualized content, at times R-rated and often by capitalizing on the broad social media reach of influencers. Since when do First Amendment rights trump the deaths of schoolchildren?
Some of their programs have been productive, others less so. Education the organization promotes has proven responsible for stopping some mass murders in classrooms and on playgrounds before they happen. But not nearly enough. There is so much work still to be done across a plethora of problems related to the underlying causes of school shootings.
Gun access, gun advertising. The emotional challenges of life in a world full of glorified violence and contradictions.
Encouraging kids to express their grievances through violence.
To turn back the tide of resentment that too easily metastasizes into aggressive action, a study in Canada looked at what would happen if a compassionate adult – mentor or teacher – could intervene when the wound of being judged, unheard, or dismissed was still raw. Before a Lanza-to-be was sucked down the vortex of extremist ideology and their future forever compromised.
The next step was to identify issues fomenting such pain, sometimes seemingly inconsequential to the perpetrators, and by using performance art in a technique pioneered by Brazilian activist Augusto Boal, perform these as pieces of theater in a safe community setting, pinpointing places of potential intervention to provide concrete solutions.
With First Nations’ injustices widely in the news north of the border, this quickly expanded to address challenges facing youth in minority and disenfranchised communities. Where working upstream to prevent moments of exclusion and grievance could clearly prevent downstream violence.
Broader concerns common here and around the world include the impact of sensationalized social media subject matter where search algorithms strengthen biases and twist perceptions based on such content.
Equally troublesome are rejection based on race, immigrant status, family wealth and standing in the community; the use of dehumanizing speech; and expectations that counter cultural values in certain demographics.
However achieved, providing a framework that welcomes open discussion and encourages those who typically don't speak up – loners who are too often those who perpetuate violence on those around them – to express and address solutions to outstanding grievances can only have a salubrious effect on the future.
This year, Sandy Hook Promise launched a nationwide PSA: “Teddy bears belong in children’s arms, not at shrines and memorials in the aftermath of school shootings” challenging the crocodile tears and platitudes of the people in power to do better, way better.
But the recent shooting of two National Guard members in Washington spotlights a uniquely American tragedy. Political violence has become the norm in Trump’s America, sending horrible messages to our children.
The cruelty and bigotry of the man-child in the White House in using the shooting to spread further suspicion of refugees and increase the imposition of military might against immigrants in the face of states and human rights justifying xenophobia and force, sets ever-worse examples for everyone.
The truly heinous shootings of young Americans march on. From Columbine to Parkland to Uvalde and too many less-known tragedies before, in between, and after. On Tuesday, a Kentucky State University shooting left two students dead.
More horrific, on the evening of the last Saturday in November, four children, ages 8, 9, and 14 plus a 21-year-old, were killed, and eleven injured in Stockton. At a party for a toddler’s second birthday.
But in the words of Winston Churchill, Sandy Hook Promise and its many sister organizations will never give up.
For more, check out Sandy Hook Promise and, from Canada, Sharing Our Stories/Hearing Unheard Moments.
