Hannah Sammut

By Hannah Sammut

For Abbey Clements, a schoolteacher for 20 years, Dec. 14, 2012, was just about the same as any other day — until the shooting began.

Clements was with her students in the second classroom on the right of Sandy Hook Elementary School when a gunman opened fire. The shooter turned left. 

“We heard all 154 shots,” she said recently at the Newtown Action Alliance’s “The Time Is Now” panel to address gun violence. 

As the sounds of screams and gunfire filled the school, Clements tried her best to keep her second-graders calm by reading and singing to them while they huddled in their coats. More than 20 minutes later, they were ushered out by police responding to the still-active scene. 

“There was nothing I did out of the ordinary that day,” Clements said. “He just turned left, and we were right.”

Twenty children between the ages of 6 and 7 were murdered, shot multiple times. Six adult staff members were also killed while they were protecting children. The rest of the 436 students and numerous staff of Sandy Hook Elementary School have to live with the trauma of that day for the rest of their lives. 

Eight years later, Clements’ students are now in the 10th grade. The most heartbreaking part, Clements says, is that they’re questioning why mass shootings still occur. 

“Our political leaders have let them down,” she says. “Before Dec. 14, 2012, I didn’t know legislators were bought and paid for by the NRA.” 

She’s not wrong. The National Rifle Association (NRA) is the largest and most powerful gun rights advocacy group in the United States. From 2010 to 2020, the NRA doled out  more than $155.1 million in outside spending, which is defined as money given to finance campaigns and politicians via political action committees. Gun reform groups have only spent a little over $47.9 million in the past 10 years. 

It’s this massive spending that buys the votes of our country’s legislators. Large-scale public campaigns employed by the NRA use scare tactics to convince Americans that any modification of the Second Amendment is anti-American and a direct attack on the values Americans hold so dear: life and liberty. The problem with this no-compromise campaign is that it completely neglects the staggering facts of the issue. Gun violence is an epidemic. 

National gun reform has been at a stalemate since the expiration of the Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Act in 2004 at the hands of the NRA. While some states have more regulations than others, both victims and advocates are demanding that both the NRA and Congress work together to address the importance of common-sense gun reform and pass federal legislation that will decrease gun violence on a national scale.

A “national embarrassment,” as referred to by President Joe Biden, shootings are as American as apple pie — the United States boasts some of the highest gun violence statistics. The U.S. has the highest rate of violent gun deaths than any other high-income country, and ranks amongst other nations as the 28th-highest overall. 

We see it too often in the news, “thoughts and prayers” offered by lawmakers when innocent people are murdered at the hands of a citizen with virtually unlimited access to firearms. This issue isn’t one that should be characterized as “The Left” versus “The Right.” It shouldn’t be political — victims at the hands of gun violence aren’t discriminated against based on political party. It can happen to anyone. In 2020 alone, 42,500 Americans died as a result of gun violence, almost 100 deaths per day. The rate of gun homicides in U.S. cities has increased from 35% to 40% in just one year. 

This issue decimates communities and tears apart families — gun violence is the leading cause of death for Black males under the age of 44 years old. It is the second leading cause of death in Black females and Hispanic males under the age of 20. Women are 21 times more likely to be killed by a gun than women in other high-income countries. 

Too many Americans are affected by the physical and emotional scars of gun violence. Peter Reid, who lost his 19-year-old daughter, Mary, in the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting that claimed 31 other lives and injured 17, shared his frustrations as a grieving father in a tearful speech during the “Time Is Now” panel. 

“The time has been now to act for decades,” he said. “Far too many American families live with the loss of a loved one that they never should have to live with.””

The need for stricter gun regulation has become so dire that non gun-owners and gun owners alike are banding together to try to make any type of progress. Reform groups have found that despite the overwhelming refusal to pass gun legislation from GOP lawmakers, the majority of gun owners actually support some type of reform.

“The gun argument often gets caught up in issues with identity,” Mathew Littman, executive director of the gun reform group 97 Percent, says. Once it’s made clear to gun owners that progressive groups don’t want to take their guns away but rather want to limit access to those who shouldn’t have them, Littman says that the majority of gun owners are in agreement. 

So much so that this is the basis of gun reform group 97 Percent, playing to the Quinnipiac poll finding that 97% of Americans favor background checks for the purchase of firearms. 

“We’re looking for uniformity across the board,” Littman says.He also states that the key to making legislative change is to view gun violence from a bipartisan approach and to include gun owners in the conversation.  Two former NRA lobbyists who became frustrated with the radicalization of their group now sit on the advisory board for 97 Percent, and provide insight into some of the methods the NRA uses to halt reform.  

But the NRA hasn’t always been a radicalized behemoth of anti-gun reform leaders. The 150-year-old organization was actually nonpartisan, and it only started directly attacking measures to increase gun safety in the 1970s. In the ’60s, members were becoming concerned for their safety and turned to the purchase of firearms in the wake of deadly riots in major cities. In 1971, agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms killed an NRA member who was hiding a large number of illegally owned weapons. As a result, a new lobbying unit was formed within the organization, the Institute for Legislative Action.

Change in leadership diverted the NRA from what was once a coalition of avid hunters and outdoorsmen to an association of those fearing an overturn of the Second Amendment. Hanlon Carter, the new head of the lobbying group, wrote to the entirety of NRA membership to discuss Congress’ recent discussions on gun control: “We can win it on a simple concept — No compromise. No gun legislation.”

This sentiment has been echoed throughout the decades that have followed Carter’s statement. The group has only become more outspoken against any method to stop mass violence in the United States, including the repeated phrase after any mass shooting, “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” 

The NRA’s refusal to agree to even the slightest amount of gun reform has forced reform groups to focus on specific potential legislation. The common course of action throughout advocacy groups is to campaign for two two key changes — universal background checks and red flag laws.

Under current federal law, guns can be purchased from unlicensed sellers at gun shows or online without a background check. And it’s not just a select few who chose to purchase from these dealers — 45% of Americans in the past two years have purchased firearms from unlicensed sellers. With three in 10 Americans owning a gun, that’s a lot of people escaping a background check. 

And yet these background checks are sometimes not even fully completed before the gun is handed over. The National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) is the tool used to complete background checks by dealers. This process only takes a few minutes. However, about 10% of background checks require supplemental review from the FBI. The FBI has three days to complete this process. If the FBI doesn’t come back with their report after three days, the dealer can give the individual the gun. 

But let’s say that the background check is completed within minutes and the green light is given to the gun buyer. Only 10 states require a waiting period to actually receive the weapon. Say an individual storms into their local gun store in a fit of rage (the neighbor’s dog just tore up their hydrangea garden again) and they’re looking for a weapon that’ll send a message. Given that they pass the background check and are within the 40 states that don’t require a waiting period before receiving said weapon, they are free to leave with their new purchase within minutes. 

Both gunmen in the recent Colorado supermarket mass shooting that left 10 dead and the Atlanta massage parlor shooting that left eight dead had purchased their weapons on the same day of their attacks. While waiting periods may not prevent premeditated mass shootings, data has shown that waiting periods reduce the amount of suicides and violent crime as a whole. Waiting periods provide an opportunity to “cool off” and to give individuals time to control their impulsive decisions. In states with waiting periods, homicides dropped by 17% and roughly 750 deaths were therefore avoided. 

A recent report by The Associated Press found that 19 mass shooters between 2012 and 2021 took advantage of gun loopholes, and that the majority of them would have not been able to possess guns under a national red flag law. Red flag laws, which are in effect in some states, allow police or family members to petition a court to temporarily remove firearms from an individual if they present a threat to themselves or others. 

This is the type of reform that Taylor Schumann, a victim of a 2013 shooting at a community college in Christiansburg, Virginia, wishes to see. 

“A student just walked in and tried to shoot me from behind,” she said. “Thankfully, the safety of the gun was still on.” While the gunman struggled to undo the safety, she ran into a closet and hid. He shot through the door and the bullet went through Schumann’s hand. Four surgeries and eight years later, and she still only has use of about 20% of her hand. 

The shooter had a long history of mental health issues, but was still able to legally purchase his weapon at a Walmart the day before the incident. 

“Families who have someone in their life that they’re always worrying about, either for their safety or the safety of others, and giving that family a tool such as red flag law and that power to call someone and say, ‘Hey I’m worried about my son or my brother, I need some help’ is just another option that can be given to people to take care of their loved ones and for law enforcement to take care of their community,” she says.

Schumann believes and advocates that incidents of violence by those with histories of mental illness can be prevented through red flag reform. Her experience and willingness to speak about her story has resulted in her writing her book, “When Thoughts and Prayers Aren’t Enough: A Shooting Survivor’s Journey Into the Realities of Gun Violence,” which is due to be published in July.

“Gun violence is still an issue that we hold to a 100% standard,” she says, and is quick to point out the hypocrisy of holding laws to a 100% efficacy rate. While there may always be shootings, gun reform legislation would reduce the overall rate of gun deaths.  She gave a classic seatbelt example — requiring the use of seatbelts under law has significantly reduced the amount of car accident fatalities. While some still chose to not follow the law, and some are subject to car accident fatalities while wearing seatbelts, the law has reduced deaths and injuries as a whole. 

When asked what her message to those who still oppose gun violence would be, she says,“for me, this issue is about reducing suffering and saving lives.” 

“It’s not about taking away anyone’s rights or taking away something that people may enjoy,” she says. “It’s just that we are losing too many people and we can’t ever fully know the effects that gun violence is having on our country. It’s just unquantifiable.”