Newtown was a beginning, not an end for gun control

Mourners gather on Dec. 15, 2012, at a memorial at Sandy Hook Elementary a day after 20 children and six adults were slain at the Newtown, Conn., school. Mourners gather on Dec. 15, 2012, at a memorial at Sandy Hook Elementary a day after 20 children and six adults were slain at the Newtown, Conn., school. Photo: Marcus Yam / New York Times 2012 Photo: Marcus Yam / New York Times 2012 Mourners gather on Dec. 15, 2012, at a memorial at Sandy Hook Elementary a day after 20 children and six adults were slain at the Newtown, Conn., school. Mourners gather on Dec. 15, 2012, at a memorial at Sandy Hook Elementary a day after 20 children and six adults were slain at the Newtown, Conn., school. Photo: Marcus Yam / New York Times 2012 Newtown was a beginning, not an end for gun control NEWTOWN, Conn. — Six years ago this month, Mark Barden and Nicole Hockley watched from the gallery, counting the yeas, as the Senate voted on expanding background checks. Four months had passed since his son, Daniel, and her son, Dylan, were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and at no point in that time had they imagined the bill would fail. The assault weapons ban the Senate rejected the same day was one thing, but background checks seemed like “low-hanging fruit,” Hockley said. The bill failed. Afterward, standing by President Barack Obama at a news conference in the Rose Garden, Hockley focused all her energy on not bursting into tears. Barden looked at his wife, Jackie, and their two surviving children and thought: “I’ve failed you. Your country has failed you.” To many people who thought the massacre of 20 first-graders and six of their educators would fundamentally change the nation’s gun politics,

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