In an appalling bid to “own” the Dec. 14 anniversary of the Newtown slayings, a coalition of gun lovers has announced plans to declare that horrific date “Guns Save Lives” day.
“We are going to use the day to get our views out,” said Alan Gottlieb of the Second Amendment Foundation. “We don’t want (pro gun-control groups) own that day. … We are gonna be there first.”
It was a proclamation that had people who lost family members at the hands of a crazed gunman at Sandy Hook elementary school shuttering.
“Dec. 14 is a sacred day for Newtown families that should be about our loved ones — not this disgusting political stunt,” said Erica Lafferty, the daughter of murdered Newtown principal Dawn Hochsprung.
“These people will be trampling on the graves of the innocent children and educators who were murdered that day.”
Twenty first-graders and six educators were slaughtered at the school by heavily armed gunman Adam Lanza.
Lafferty, who was famously photographed on her wedding day kissing her mother’s tombstone, was enraged by the suggestion that her mother could have stopped the bloodshed if she had been armed.
“It’s absolutely grotesque to suggest that if my mom had a gun that the Newtown massacre may have somehow turned out differently,” Lafferty said. “She was a mother and an educator — not a Marine. And she did everything in her power to protect those children from harm. These cowards don’t have an ounce of the courage that my mom had.”
Sandy Hook families, and groups advocating legislation to limit access to guns, said the effort to use the anniversary to promote gun rights desecrates a day that should be reserved for remembering victims, not politicizing deaths.
“It’s really in poor judgment,” said Neil Heslin, whose 6-year-old son Jesse died in the shooting. “I would hope everyone would give the respect they need and deserve.
“I’d like to see a day of remembrance, a memorial for the people who lost their lives,” Heslin said. “I personally would like to see the politics part of it stay out of Newtown and Sandy Hook that day.”
Gottlieb, whose two pro-gun groups, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, and Second Amendment Foundation, led the charge to rebrand Dec. 14, said he and his allies are just responding to gun control groups already politicizing the anniversary.
The groups plan to hold demonstrations across the country to show “gun-grabbers” that there is a “good side to guns.”
Groups including Mayor Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns have said the Sandy Hook anniversary should be an occasion for Congress to revisit legislation expanding background checks for gun purchases.
Gottlieb said he does not expect events to be held in Newtown, though he said he does not dictate exactly where rallies will occur.
The nation’s major gun rights groups like the National Rifle Association and Gun Owners of America haven’t weighed on efforts to claim Dec. 14 as a pro-gun day, but Gottlieb said he’s heard nothing but support from pro-gun activists.
His rivals pushing for gun control say they don’t want to politicize the anniversary, but vowed to protect the memories of the children and educators who were killed.
“American mothers will not allow a depraved, vocal minority to sully or smear the memory of the victims of Sandy Hook,” said Shannon Watts of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, a group formed in response to Newtown.
Newtown parents said they want a chance to define the anniversary their own way.
“It’s a day of kindness,” said Darren Wagner, whose teenage sons attend high school in Newtown.
Heslin said all extremists are free to use the day to “speak their piece.”
“Really when they push it to the extreme they don’t do themselves any justice,” he said.
