Former President Barack Obama mentioned he nonetheless considers the fatal college taking pictures that took the lives of 20 youngsters and 6 adults in 2012 the “darkest day of my presidency” because the tenth anniversary of the taking pictures approaches.
“I imagine Dec. 14, 2012, the only darkest day of my presidency,” Obama mentioned Tuesday evening on the Sandy Hook Promise “10-12 months Remembrance” receive advantages in New York Town. “Like such a lot of folks, I felt now not simply sorrow, however I felt indignant, fury in a global that would permit this sort of factor.”
Sandy Hook Promise, began by way of a number of households who misplaced family members within the Newtown, Connecticut, taking pictures, is a non-profit that objectives to offer protection to youngsters from gun violence whilst educating empathy in school rooms.
Right through his speech on the receive advantages, Obama praised Sandy Hook Promise for combating imaginable acts of gun violence.
Picture by way of Kristina Bumphrey/WWD by means of Getty Pictures
“You’ve made which means the place there was once none,” Obama mentioned. “Again after we had been in combination in 2012, I mentioned that Newtown could be remembered for the best way that you simply seemed out for each and every different, the best way that you simply cared for one any other and the best way that you simply liked one any other.”
Whilst gun violence continues to run rampant within the U.S., there were glimmers of sure exchange within the remaining 10 years. Sandy Hook households received $73 million in a lawsuit agreement this 12 months in opposition to Remington Hands, which made the Bushmaster AR-15-style rifle utilized by the gunman right through the bloodbath. It was once the primary time a gun producer were held chargeable for a taking pictures.
“If it is in a church or a synagogue, in a grocery retailer or on a faculty campus or in a house or on a town side road … I nonetheless really feel anger. And I’m hoping you do too.”
– Former President Barack Obama
And the Nationwide Rifle Affiliation (NRA), which noticed its club surge initially of 2013 following the Sandy Hook taking pictures, has observed its management and political energy fall apart beneath the burden of mismanagement and greed over the previous couple of years.
Then there’s Alex Jones, the conspiracy host of “Infowars,” who used his platform to mock the fogeys of lifeless youngsters for years, falsely claiming they had been actors and that their family members by no means died. This 12 months he was once in spite of everything held in command of the torrent of abuse he leveled at the Sandy Hook households when he was once ordered to pay greater than $1 billion for his unhealthy lies.
Previous this 12 months, 19 scholars and two lecturers had been killed in Uvalde, Texas, in a taking pictures sickeningly very similar to that of Newtown. The next month, President Joe Biden signed a bipartisan gun protection invoice into legislation that complements background exams, addresses psychological well being care, and puts curbs on purchasing weapons.
Obama tried a equivalent push for gun violence prevention in 2016 with a invoice that might have enhanced background exams. He spoke thru tears the day he implored Congress to behave.
“In some way, we grow to be numb to it, and we commence considering, ‘That is standard,’” Obama mentioned.
As an alternative, the previous president was once roundly mocked by way of conservatives for his emotional plea. The invoice in the long run failed, thank you partly to power from the NRA and a handful of Democrats who voted in opposition to the invoice to cater to gun-loving electorate of their states.
Picture by way of Ken Cedeno/Corbis by means of Getty Pictures
In his speech Tuesday, Obama mentioned the paintings to curb gun violence isn’t executed.
“In 2022, there has now not been a unmarried week — now not one — and not using a mass taking pictures someplace in The us,” he mentioned. “We faux that the most efficient we will do for the households of Sandy Hook, Parkland and Virginia Tech and such a lot of different communities is to tinker across the edges after which be offering rote recitations of our ideas and our prayers when violence explodes as soon as once more.”
Obama admits he nonetheless will get indignant when he hears about the newest mindless taking pictures.
“If it is in a church or a synagogue, in a grocery retailer or on a faculty campus or in a house or on a town side road … I nonetheless really feel anger,” he mentioned. “And I’m hoping you do too.”