Ten years later, the Sandy Hook school massacre reignites the gun debate in the United States

Newtown, a town in the north-east of the United States, which seems to have come out of a Christmas movie, recalls that a decade ago it became the saddest place in the country after a young shot in cold blood at Sandy Hook Elementary School and killed 26 people: twenty were boys aged 6 and 7.

A decade later, the same questions are ringing within and outside the United States: Why are there still so many fatal school shootings? Why has no government been able to stop them?

On December 14, 2012, adam speara 20-year-old boy born in Kingston, New Hampshire caused one of the worst school massacres in the United States, which ended when he shot himself to death.

Early that morning, the young man took a 22-gauge Savage Mark II rifle, which he would keep handy at home, and killed his mother, Nancy Lanza, with four shots to the head.

A little later he took other weapons which, like that rifle, it was later learned, had been bought legally by his mother. He got into her car and drove about 5 miles to Sandy Hook College, where about 700 kids were studying.

He arrived around 9.30am, went down, took out a Bushmaster rifle capable of firing 45 rounds a minute and fired the first rounds into glass near the school door, according to the BBC, based on the investigation.

Later, two handguns were also found next to his body, and inside his car, an Izhmash Saiga-12, 12-gauge semi-automatic rifle, recalls CNN a decade later, when the wounds still don’t stop hurting. Newtown.

The school had recently installed a new security system that required all visitors to ring the bell at the main entrance to enter. Lanza avoided that procedure: he made his way through with blows.

The principal, Dawn Hochsprung, and school psychologist Mary Sherlach came out into the hallway to see what was going on. They were followed by deputy director Natalie Hammond, CNN recalled.

They didn’t come to warn: the first two died from the bullets they received. Hammond was wounded. It was just the beginning.

The first 911 calls were recorded after 9:30 a.m., and police and lifeguards arrived at the school about five minutes later. It was late.

Lanza had already entered a classroom, where he shot and killed 14 boys in record time.

He immediately went to another classroom, where he killed six students and two teachers. He committed suicide in that same courtroom, after a massacre that lasted less than 11 minutes.

The next day, the Connecticut State Police released the names of the victims: six adult women, 12 girls, and eight boys, all between the ages of six and seven.

The then US president, the Democrat Barack Obama, spoke a few hours after the massacre: “We will have to unite and take significant measures to prevent other tragedies like this, regardless of politics”, he said moved.

But ten years later, no government has managed to pass tougher laws to control the sale and possession of guns, which in this country can be almost as simple as buying food in a supermarket.

Discussion

Ten years later, the current Democratic presidentPresident Joe Biden has renewed his pledge to ban semi-automatic rifles.

In June, Biden signed a landmark gun bill but failed to reinstate the so-called assault weapons ban that was in place before 2004.

With twists and contrasting positions, the debate widens on this and other proposed measures to control the circulation of weapons.

Its supporters say tougher access restrictions are the key to curbing the shootings. While other voices argue that this check will help, but it won’t by itself solve the problem of the massacres, especially in schools, which often have to do with mental health system failures and poor safety in school buildings, according to other voices. it seems.

In any case, those who defend the restriction on the sale and use of firearms clash again and again with the powerful “gun lobby”: the defenders of the second amendment to the Constitution, which in short defends “the right of the people to possess and bear arms” to defend themselves.

The powerful National Rifle Association (NRA) has repeatedly succeeded in stopping plans for further restrictions.

Exactly one year ago, on the ninth anniversary of the Sandy Hook massacre, Biden called on the Senate to pass three bills. One on background checks and one aimed at keeping guns out of the hands of harassers.

The third is the so-called Build Back Better Act, which includes community violence intervention programs.

But so far no success.

The numbers

Despite a wave of calls for stricter gun control following the Sandy Hook bloodbath, the death toll from US school shootings continues to rise.

And not just in schools: discos, supermarkets and various public places have been the scene of massacres in recent years, in various states of the country.

According to research compiled by the independent research group K-12 School Shooting Database, released Wednesday by the BBC, there were 189 U.S. school shootings in Sandy Hook which left at least one dead.

Most of these incidents are combined with suicides and past domestic violence.

In total, 279 people were shot and killed in an educational institution during, before or after school hours, including weekends, according to the report details.

Memory

In November, a memorial to the Sandy Hook victims not far from the school grounds was opened to the public.

The names of the victims were carved on a wall. Ana Grace Marquez-Greene, was among the victims. I was six. Her mother, Nelba Marquez-Greene, remembers her: “Ten years. A life and a blink of an eye,” she wrote on Twitter.

“Ana Grace, we used to wait for you to come home. Now you’re waiting for us. Wait, baby. Wait,” quotes the BBC.

“We are unable to have a polite speech in this country on this issue,” he noted. The debate will be tough. And it’s far from over.