Gun violence: Acknowledging a crisis

“I’m graduating, I’m going to college, I get to go home, I get to see my dog, I get to do all this when they don’t. It’s just really hard.” (Children’s Defense Fund) – In the midst of this season’s joyful graduation celebrations, one commencement ceremony stood out in a heartbreaking way because of the friends who were missing. Emma Ehrens told an interviewer she was a 6-year-old first grader in December 2012, looking forward to making gingerbread houses later that afternoon, when a gunman armed with a semiautomatic assault rifle burst into her classroom at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. When the gun jammed for a few seconds, one of those classmates, Jesse Lewis, yelled, “Run!” Emma ran, but Jesse was one of the 20 children and six adults who were killed at Sandy Hook that day. On June 12, about 60 survivors of the Sandy Hook shooting graduated from Newtown High School. Like Emma, many of them were still grappling with their memories of that day, the missing teachers and administrators who might have been in the audience, and the other beautiful students who should have been crossing the stage too. Related Stories A group of...