Newtown Activists Respond To Navy Yard Shooting
NEWTOWN, Conn. (CBSNewYork/AP) -- Activists from Newtown, Conn. where 26 people were fatally shot last December headed to Washington to again lobby for gun control, a day after 12 people were killed in a shooting rampage in the capital.
About 50 members of the Newtown Action Alliance left for Washington on Tuesday. The group will ask Congress to require background checks for gun buyers.
David Ackert, the group's founder, told the Hearst Connecticut Media Group that the shootings at the Washington Navy Yard on Monday bring back "terrible feelings.''
"We know what the families are going through,'' Ackert said. "It exacerbates the reason we're going, and we're determined to get the politicians to stop looking the other way, now that it's come to their doorstep.''
Newtown Activists Respond To Navy Yard Shooting
"There have been mass shootings after mass shootings and after what happened in Newtown where 20 innocent children being murdered that we thought there were going to be some actions and Americans demand it," Po Murray, vice-chair of the Alliance, told WCBS 880 Connecticut Bureau Chief Fran Schneidau. "Yesterday was a very tough day for us. As we watched the news unfold, very emotional day and we're very heartbroken for the community down there."
The group will meet with more than three dozen lawmakers when they arrive in D.C., Schneidau reported.
Another group, Sandy Hook Promise, also issued a statement on Monday's shooting, saying "our hearts are broken, our spirit is not."
"We will continue to honor our pledge to find common ground around sensible solutions that put an end to such tragedy," the statement said.
Several parents of children killed at the Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14 lobbied Congress earlier this year for legislation that ultimately failed.
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