Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
10 Years After Sandy Hook: How Gun Violence Has — And Hasn't — Changed America
NBC News: 10 Years After Sandy Hook, Biden Says Americans Should Have 'Societal Guilt' Over Gun Violence
Marking a decade since the Sandy Hook school massacre, President Joe Biden said Wednesday the United States must do more to tackle the nation's gun violence epidemic and people should have "societal guilt" for taking too long to address it. Biden said in a statement that 10 years ago, on Dec. 14, 2012, "the unthinkable happened," when 20 young children and six educators were killed at the elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut. Survivors "still carry the wounds of that day," he said. (Shabad, 12/14)
The Hill: On Sandy Hook’s Anniversary, ATF Director Calls Number Of Shootings In US ‘Wholly Un-American’
Steve Dettelbach, the director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), in marking the 10th anniversary of the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy on Wednesday, called the amount of gun violence in the United States “un-American” and vowed to keep up the work of the Biden administration in preventing gun violence. “It is wholly unlawful and it is wholly un-American for this level of firearm violence to be going on. So, what I say to … people out there who are railing against this, keep using your voices, we’re with you on this. We have to do better,” he said in an interview with The Hill at ATF headquarters. (Gangitano, 12/14)
AP: A Decade After Sandy Hook, Grief Remains But Hope Grows
They would have been 16 or 17 this year. High school juniors. The children killed at the Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14, 2012 should have spent this year thinking about college, taking their SATs and getting their driver’s licenses. Maybe attending their first prom. Instead, the families of the 20 students and six educators slain in the mass shooting will mark a decade without them Wednesday. December is a difficult month for many in Newtown, the Connecticut suburb where holiday season joy is tempered by heartbreak around the anniversary of the nation’s worst grade school shooting. For former Sandy Hook students who survived the massacre, guilt and anxiety can intensify. For the parents, it can mean renewed grief, even as they continue to fight on their lost children’s behalf. (Collins, 12/13)
CNN: Sandy Hook Parents Continue To Push For Changes In The Decade Since The School Shooting
They were living ordinary and full lives in the small New England town of Newtown, Connecticut, unprepared for the devastation that would unfold and occupy the rest of their days. ... A month after the shooting, Mark Barden, Nicole Hockley and other parents who lost children that day launched Sandy Hook Promise, an organization dedicated to protecting children from gun violence. (Simon, 12/14)
NBC News: 10 Years After Sandy Hook Shooting, Gun Safety Movement Highlights Major Wins
As killing sprees have become more frequent and public support for tougher firearm laws has grown, the apparent invincibility of the gun lobby on Capitol Hill has shown cracks. Congress passed the first federal gun safety law in 30 years in June to tighten background checks and offer "red flag" grants for states that allow families and police to try to keep guns out of the hands of potentially dangerous people before they commit violence. On the state level, 525 “significant gun safety laws” have been adopted in the decade since Sandy Hook, according to a new report by the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, the advocacy group led by former Rep. Gabby Giffords, D-Ariz., who survived a shooting in January 2011. (Kapur, 12/13)
The Guardian: Sandy Hook’s Tragic Legacy On Gun Safety Takes A New Turn 10 Years On
“For most of the decade before Sandy Hook, the gun lobby got whatever they wanted,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) told the Guardian. “For the 10 years after Sandy Hook, it was slow progress on behalf of the gun safety movement, but it was largely just gridlock … This summer, we showed that we now are more powerful.” (Greve, 12/14)
USA Today: Sandy Hook School Psychologist Died Confronting Gunman. 10 Years Later, Her Husband Still Fights For Change
Bill Sherlach knew his wife for 36 years and three days. He first laid eyes on her at a college Christmas party, and the holidays became their special time. But a gunman shattered it all the morning of Dec. 14, 2012, when he stormed into Sandy Hook Elementary School and fatally shot 20 young children and six staff members, including Sherlach's wife, Mary Sherlach, a school psychologist. A decade later, Sherlach still lives in the same house. He works the same job. He sits in a similar office. (Hauck, 12/14)
NPR: 10 Years After Sandy Hook, A Family Finds Bits Of Joy Amid Shards Of Pain
To Jen Hensel, one of the big things about marking 10 years, is making it 10 years. "Yeah, we're here," she sighs. "I honestly think that's quite a remarkable accomplishment. I feel like I'm living again, which I wasn't for a really long time. And I needed to do that for my children." It's a choice Hensel makes over and over again every day — to hone in amid her hurt on what she calls the bits of beauty. (Smith, 12/14)
In related news about gun violence —
KHN: Mass Shootings Reopen The Debate Over Whether Crime Scene Photos Prompt Change Or Trauma
John Lites was one of the first police officers to respond to a 911 call from Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, on June 17, 2015, when a white gunman murdered nine Black people attending a Bible study. Lites arrived at the scene only minutes after the first emergency call was placed. He held one of the victim’s hands as the man died. Lites then stood guard inside the fellowship hall all night — remaining even through a bomb threat — to prevent people who didn’t need to be there from entering the room. “I didn’t want anyone else to see it,” Lites said. “I was totally traumatized.” (Sausser, 12/15)
The 19th: Club Q Survivors Tie Anti-LGBTQ+ Rhetoric To Shooting In House Testimony
Matthew Haynes, founding co-owner of Club Q in Colorado Springs, says he’s witnessed several kinds of anti-LGBTQ+ hate in the wake of the mass shooting there last month that left five people dead. There’s visceral hate, which he says the club, a longtime queer community space, has received through hundreds of vitriol-filled emails and letters since the shooting took place. Then there’s the “subtle hate” — which he identifies as legislation and leaders not respecting LGBTQ+ people or families, and in Republicans who did not vote for the just-signed Respect for Marriage Act. (Rummler, 12/14)
