Over 200 school shooting incidents have taken place in the US, an average of nearly one a week, since the Sandy Hook elementary school massacre four years ago when 20 students and six staff members were killed.
There have been at least 94 gun-related deaths and over 156 people injured as a result of more than 200 school shootings since Sandy Hook, according to data from Everytown for Gun Safety, which tracks gun violence and other shootings on school grounds.
The Sandy Hook school shooting occurred on December 14, 2012, in Newtown, Connecticut, when 20-year-old Adam Lanza fatally shot 20 children between six and seven years old, as well as six adult staff members, before killing himself. Prior to driving to the school, Lanza shot and killed his mother at their home.
Although the Sandy Hook massacre was the third-deadliest mass shooting in US history, Congress has consistently failed to pass federal gun control legislation due to the influence of the powerful gun lobby.
On Thursday, dozens of gun-safety activists attended a press conference in Congress to mark the fourth anniversary of the Sandy Hook shooting and demand stricter gun laws from lawmakers and President-elect Donald Trump.
US Senator Richard Blumenthal, who represents the state of Connecticut, called on Trump to use his term in office as “a legacy moment” by adopting stronger laws on firearms, including expanding background checks on all gun sales.
“Shortly, we’ll have a new president, unlike President [Barack] Obama, hardly committed to the cause of ending gun violence,” Blumenthal said. “But there is a moment of opportunity here, and my hope is that newly elected president Trump will use this opportunity” to decrease gun violence in the US.
Less than a tenth of Americans think that the US has made any progress toward preventing gun violence four years after the Sandy Hook massacre, according to a new survey.
The HuffPost/YouGov poll found that 26 percent of Americans say that society has gotten worse at preventing gun violence, while 53 percent say it hasn’t changed and just nine percent say that things have gotten better.