| For Immediate Release December 13, 2013 For More Information Contact: |
Washington, DC – Children’s Defense Fund President Marian Wright Edelman released the statement below on the one-year anniversary of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT.
“The only thing more morally and politically obscene than the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut that took place one year ago is our complicity in the nation’s destructive culture of gun violence that kills or injures a child or teen every 30 minutes. Every 30 minutes. We must all follow the example of the Newtown families and channel our shock and grief into action. The Newtown families are standing up and turning their pain into a mission for common-sense gun safety laws and improvements in mental health services to keep preventable tragic events like Sandy Hook and the daily toll of child gun deaths from happening again.
“We must all act with urgency and persistence to protect children, not guns. Sandy Hook was no fluke. The number of children and teens killed by guns in 2010 was nearly five times the number of U.S. soldiers killed in action that year in Iraq and Afghanistan. The tragic relentless taking of life by gun violence will continue if Congress and state legislators remain silent and do not act to end this public health crisis. It is time for every parent, grandparent, and faith and community leader to stand up to Congress and say, ‘Enough—protect children, not guns now!’”