The ceremony kicking off the Newtown, Conn., bus tour on gun control. (WIll Holt)
Six months after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings, victims’ families, elected officials and faith leaders gathered in Newtown, Conn., for the launch of a nationwide bus tour to step up the pressure on politicians for stronger gun-control laws and to commemorate those who were killed.
At the pretour ceremony on Friday morning, crowds gathered in front of Newtown’s Edmond Town Hall. There, a ticker counted the number of people killed by gun violence since the Sandy Hook shootings that claimed the lives of 20 students and six educators. When the ceremony commenced, that number was 6,003.
“Over 6,000 have been killed by guns in six months alone,” said Steve Barton, a survivor of the July 2012 shootings in Aurora, Colo., and a speaker at Friday’s ceremony. “More than 3,000 will be killed while this bus is on the road if we don’t do anything.”
Barton, who works with the nonprofit advocacy group Mayors Against Illegal Guns, also said, “Today’s a day of remembrance. Not just for the Read More »from Bus tour commemorating Sandy Hook takes gun control on the road