To The Editor:

My family and I have lived in Newtown for over 40 years and feel very lucky to live in such a wonderful town.

After the massacre in Sandy Hook we were sure that there would be gun regulations … all these brave parents working so hard for change … who could guess that our government could turn their back on reform. Didn't they see the photos and wakes and funerals? Is the gun lobby stronger then common sense? Is the Second Amendment so misunderstood that even our president is afraid of upsetting the members of the NRA?

Newtown is so strong with all the organizations that work tirelessly for change here we are five years later and there are too many murders to count. Real life people are being killed. They are not just pictures on our television. Children are being killed. We live in a country where it is dangerous to even go to a movie, concert, church, and it turns out that the most dangerous place to go is to school. Aren't we ashamed when another shooting takes place and we can't tell our kids that this will be the last one? We know there will be more because we have become a country that refuses to outlaw assault rifles.

My oldest granddaughter is in high school and I feel like a coward when I can't assure her that she and her friends are safe. No one is safe. There will always guns in America but can't we can't get the regulations put in place? Do people not understand that their love of guns that they can buy at Walmart, are killing us?

Yesterday in Florida 14-year-old children were massacred. The tributes, flowers, teddy bears balloons and tears will not stop this carnage. Mr Trump's condolences are meaningless without even mentioning the assault gun used. There have been 18 mass shootings this year and in 2018 and we are only half through February. Don't the gun lobbyists have children? Do they care that no place is safe in America because of guns. Are we crazy? Our lives seem to go on after each atrocity. We have become numb to the killings of our citizens and numb to the deaths of our children.

Assault rifles have to be banned. Gun owners have to give in to the hundreds of grieving families and show them that we feel their pain and want to do something.

Everyone talks about what a bad year it is with people getting the flu, the dangers of cigarettes, driving drunk, illegal drugs, but we are not giving enough attention to guns that kill one precious person a day. What monsters we must all be to sacrifice our people because of the Second Amendment. We are afraid of countries with nuclear weapons but not of the thousands of assault rifles in our own.

Do something.

Jane Cottingham

16 Blackman Road, Newtown    February 15, 2018