Sandy Hook families speak out after Uvalde school shooting

The families of people killed in the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting have pleaded for action on gun control in the wake of the killings at Robb elementary school in Texas.

Erica Leslie Lafferty, whose mother was killed in the massacre in Connecticut in 2012, said that it was “beyond time to take action” in the wake of the attack in Uvalde which has left at least 19 children and two adults dead.

“Thoughts and prayers didn’t bring my mother back after she was gunned down in a hallway at Sandy Hook, she said on Twitter. It is beyond time to take action.”

She said she had struggled with PTSD after the massacre. “My heart is with #RobbElementarySchool families, faculty and the community. I’m broken.”

Speaking later on CNN, Lafferty said: “These families in that community are walking into hell and there is definitely a network of people out there who have lived it, who are stepping up to support them … But it’s not going to just go away. Not for the families, not for the community. It’s life-changing. It’s devastating. It’s traumatizing, and every single time it happens, it brings it back like it was yesterday.”

Neil Heslin, whose son Jesse Lewis, 6, died in the shooting in 2012, told the New York Times that he felt defeated. “I guess it’s something in society we know will happen again, over and over.”

Watching the coverage was “almost like an instant replay of Sandy Hook,” he said.

Sandy Hook Promise, the lobby group formed by parents of the victims, said in a statement: “We are devastated about reports that multiple people are dead, including children. Our hearts are with the families and community as this tragic story unfolds.”

Despite intensive efforts by then president Barack Obama, a bill to expand background checks on people trying to buy guns failed in the then-Republican controlled Senate.

Mary Ann Jacob, who was working as a librarian at Sandy Hook on the day of the attack in which 26 people died, including 20 children aged five and six, said that she had also been forced to relive the day of the shooting in the wake of the latest massacre.

“I’m sick at what you are going through today,” she said on Twitter. “I am transported back to the firehouse that we were brought to after the shooting at our school almost 10 years ago. I’m so sorry those deaths did not change our world. I’m broken hearted.”

Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter was killed in the 2018 Parkland shooting in Florida, gave an impassioned plea on television for action to try to prevent more gun violence.

“People failed. I’m done,” he told MSNBC. They fucking failed our kids again, OK? I’m done. I’ve had it. How many more times?”

Guttenberg, whose daughter Jaime was among 14 children killed at Parkland, also criticised Texas governor Greg Abbott for approving legislation last year that ended the need for Texans to obtain a licence to carry handguns.

“I’m going to listen to that governor of Texas talk about why he pushed to fight for laws in Texas that made it easier for the guns to be had?”

He also appealed to Texas Republican Ted Cruz to lead renewed efforts to introduce gun controls. “You be the Republican senator who says ‘I’ve had enough’. Because if you don’t get out of office you don’t belong there,” Guttenberg said.