In Dunblane, Scotland, there were 16 and one. In Uvalde, 19 and two. In Sandy Hook, 10 years ago this week, 20 and six – children and adults killed in a few terrifying seconds by men equipped with high-powered guns.
A makeshift memorial with crosses for the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting massacre stands outside a home in Newtown, Conn., on Dec. 14, 2013, the one-year anniversary of the shootings. Robert F. Bukaty/Associated Press
How do we think about these lives lost? How do we get beyond the terrifying numbers and closer to the humanity that was extinguished on those awful days?
We could describe them as pupils, students, children, nieces, nephews, runners, huggers, as gap-toothed singers. As teachers, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, lovers, smoothers of windblown hair and patchers of skinned knees.
This would be the year that the Sandy Hook children would be starting to work on their college applications. They would be coming and going from after-school jobs, getting into their cars to go out to meet friends. They would be falling in love and writing poetry to one another. They would be walking their dogs and helping to stack firewood. They would be living, if not but for Adam Lanza and his Bushmaster XM15-E2S rifle.
Just down the hill from the current Sandy Hook Elementary School is a beautiful memorial to the students and their teachers. Visitors report hearing the sounds of children’s voices spilling down the hill from the rebuilt school. This was apparently part of the design, to have the voices of living children mingling with the spirits of the departed children and teachers. Also included in the memorial is a box containing the remains of teddy bears, toys, flowers and cards that made up the first memorial that sprung up near the school after the slayings.
Appearing on the PBS Newshour late last month Jonathan Capehart, associated editor of The Washington Post, reflected on these young victims.
“And I keep going back to Newtown and the slaughter of those babies at Sandy Hook Elementary. If America and its leaders could not come together to do something to control guns, to do something about gun safety after the murder of those innocent children, then nothing will happen.”
These are only some of the youngest victims of 398 school shootings since 2000. Teens and young adults are no exception to this continuing gun violence. Shootings at Columbine High School, Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia are but a few examples.
By one estimate, 321 people are shot in this country each and every day, 22 of them young children and teens. Five of those children die. That’s one entire kindergarten classroom a week, each and every week of the year.
It has been 10 years since Sandy Hook and it seems to me that little has changed. In a speech a few days after the tragedy, President Barack Obama told parents of the slain children: “We can’t accept events like this as routine … Are we prepared to say that such violence visited upon our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom?”
Could this be the year that we finally resolve to come together as a country to do something about ending gun violence? It’s up to every one of us. We owe it to those gap-toothed singers and those patchers of skinned knees.
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