Josephine Gay loved to spend her summers running her own lemonade stand.
Siretha White’s mother called her “Nugget” because she brought her family more joy than a nugget of gold.
Peter Wang had his heart set on serving his country in uniform one day.
Josephine was 7 when she was murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Siretha was 10 when she was gunned down at her birthday party in Chicago. Peter was 15 when he sacrificed his own life to help his classmates escape a shooter at a Parkland, Florida, high school.
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This past week, as we mourned the anniversary of the Sandy Hook massacre, I couldn’t help but think about who these kids would’ve become if they’d been allowed to grow up - if they hadn’t lost their lives to gun violence before they’d even really started living.
Imagine your own little girl or boy being forced to stare down the barrel of a semiautomatic. Then imagine knowing that their death was preventable - if only it weren’t so easy for anyone to get their hands on weapons of war, including the AR-15s used in most mass shootings in recent memory.
I come from a long line of combat veterans who have taken up arms to defend this nation since before George Washington crossed the Delaware, and I spent decades in the military myself. So I understand why
