Grace Fisher survived the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, quiet and brooding as her first-grade teacher quietly read The Nutcracker.
Then he spent the rest of his childhood largely watching from the sidelines as dozens of similar shootings ravaged other schools across the country.
Fischer, now 18, will vote in November’s first presidential election. It’s a monumental moment nearly 12 years after she endured one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history, and it’s given her and her peers hope that they can affect change.
“It’s a big turning point in our lives,” said Fisher, who was 6 years old when a gunman killed 20 first-graders and six teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14, 2012.
At the time, activists hoped the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, would be a turning point and lead to important legislation, said Emma Brown, executive director of Giffords, a gun safety group founded by former shooting survivor Gabby Giffords.
“The country was forced to look at this issue in a visceral, horrific way,” Brown said. “The loss of all these children in the classroom was so unimaginable and so horrific that even the politicians and the people trying to act in this country couldn’t deny for the first time that this was a growing problem.”
States have since passed hundreds of gun safety laws, but major proposed federal bills, including bans on semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity magazines, have failed.
After the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas, the Trump administration imposed a federal ban on bump stocks, gun accessories that allow semi-automatic rifles to fire more quickly. But the Supreme Court exceeded regulation this year.
Friday marks 20 years since the 1994 federal assault weapons ban expired. Meanwhile, the number of mass shootings has increased.
This should not be the case.
Emma Brown, Executive Director of Giffords
Since 2013, at least 122 people have been killed in 64 planned school shootings. Follower of NBC News. Recently, on September 4, two students and two teachers were killed in Georgia Apalachee High School Authorities allegedly by a 14-year-old suspect with an AR-type rifle.
Thursday, the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions said guns are the leading cause of death among children and teenagers, killing more people in the United States than car accidents and cancer for the third year in a row for people ages 1-17.
“We were told it would change everything,” said Emma Ehrens, 18, who was by the Sandy Hook gunman’s side as he shot her classmates. “Every time it really breaks your heart a little more.”
Speaking to NBC News, Ehrens said Fischer and two other first-class Sandy Hook survivors hoped to turn things around by electing Vice President Kamala Harris as president.
“It’s a no-brainer to me,” said survivor Lilly Wasilnak, 18.
The teenagers first met Harris as they prepared to meet at the White House on June 6 for National Gun Violence Awareness Day. graduated from high school. They shared their personal accounts of the shooting with Harris, who thanked them for their bravery.
“None of you should have had the experience you did,” Harris told them video It was announced by the White House. “Know that you’re moving the needle.”
Harris said protecting students from gun violence in schools is the most important issue. The survivor-backed plan includes banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines and requiring universal background checks.
Harris also advocates for so-called red flag laws that allow a family member or law enforcement to request a court order to temporarily confiscate guns if they feel the gun owner could cause harm.
Another survivor, Matt Holden, who turned 18 last month, said the plans differ from those of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his running mate, JD Vance. “fact of life”.
“I don’t like it. I don’t like to admit it. I don’t like that this is a fact of life,” the Ohio senator said at a rally in Phoenix. “But if you’re a psychologist and you want to make headlines, you understand that our schools are soft targets.”
“We need to beef up security so that if a psycho walks in the front door and wants to kill a bunch of kids, they can’t,” Vance said.
At the rally, Vance said strict restrictions on firearms are not the answer. Similarly, at a National Rifle Association event in May, Trump said he would come back The Biden administration’s executive orders designed to reduce gun violence.
In response to a request for comment, the Trump campaign provided quotes from relatives of shooting victims in support of the former president, including JT Lewis, whose brother Jesse was killed in the Sandy Hook shooting.
“President Trump created the Federal School Safety Commission and signed the Stop School Violence Act,” Lewis said. “He supports toughening schools and protecting our nation’s children. Kamala Harris wants to take the police out of schools and leave our children defenseless. The choice is easy.”
Brown, Giffords’ executive director, said gun safety laws are the way forward to ensure school shootings don’t become the norm.
“There’s a ticket in this race that says over and over that it doesn’t have to be this way,” he said.
Giffords has spent $15 million to help Harris’ campaign, as well as other House candidates who favor stricter gun laws. This was first reported by NBC News.
Since Sandy Hook, states have passed more than 620 gun safety laws, Brown said. In 2022, President Joe Biden passed the Bipartisan Safe Communities Act, the most significant gun safety legislation in nearly 30 years.
“The refusal is there and the will is there,” Brown said.
When survivors vote for the first time this fall, Wasilnak and Holden said, it will be in honor of their first-graders who won’t live to see the milestone, as well as the teachers who have surely died.
“I’m voting for 26 people who can’t,” Wasilnak said.