Gun control calls grow louder as Newtown families give voice to grief

[Robb]

Undeterred by failure in the Senate, a growing movement is attempting to take on the NRA at its own game – and win



Terri Rousseau is a member of what she calls "the saddest club in the world". She was forced to join it on 14 December last year when her daughter, Lauren, a teacher at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, was shot dead along with all 14 of the young children in her classroom.

On that day, Rousseau was thrown together with the other members of club: the families of 26 children and educators who died in Newtown, along with survivors and victims' relatives from previous mass shootings at Columbine, Virginia Tech, Tucson, Oak Creek and Aurora. The group acts as an informal self-help resource, providing mutual support, advice and consolation.

Almost six months after the Newtown tragedy, a new and far more significant phenomenon has begun to emerge from this unique collective. Out of its shared suffering, a political movement is beginning to coalesce that is changing the nature of the gun debate in America and posing a formidable challenge to the country's leading pro-gun lobby, the National Rifle Association.

After decades in which the NRA was assumed to hold a vice-like grip over gun policy in the country – its will pointless to resist by politicians in state assemblies, Congress and the White House alike – an alternative voice has suddenly surfaced, with the potential to redress the balance. At its front and centre are the Newtown families, who are turning grief into a political force to be reckoned with....

Read More: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/29/gun-control-newtown-shooting-nra

[Tarheel_Dem]

1. K&R

[billh58]

2. The tide is turning

and a very different, and encouraging, demographic is emerging. The days of the NRA-sponsored obscene proliferation of untraceable guns and unaccountable gun owners are numbered, and no amount of panic-buying or hoarding of guns and ammunition will slow the momentum of a return to sanity.

The NRA/Gungeoneers are so very confident that their "gunz for all" mantra will prevail, and it will be poetic justice to see them rant and rave when sensible gun regulation is forced down their throats. The Second Amendment is not under attack as the NRA would have their RKBA zealot followers believe; but those who would abuse the intent of the Second Amendment for greed and profit are being targeted, and called out as the death merchants that they really are.

Newtown and Gabby Giffords are the face of this new and energized movement, and they represent the collective will of more and more Americans each day. This madness will be spotlighted and dealt with in Town and County Councils, State Legislatures, and the US Congress, and order and sanity will be restored. It may take a few years, but the movement has begun.

[MichiganVote]

3. At the hands of a young man who NEVER should have owned/shot a gun.

Poor soul.

[Cha]

4. No need to be deterred.. that was "Round 1".

thank you, Terri Rousseau.

thanks Robb

[defacto7]

5. Big Kick