Robert and Alissa Parker leave the Sandy Hook Volunteer Fire House in tears on December 14, 2012, after their daughter Emilie was killed in a mass shooting.
Parents of Sandy Hook Elementary School victims have united to call for more focus on school security in the United States.
A group of parents who lost children in the massacre at the school in the town of Newtown, Connecticut, are raising money to help other communities better secure their schools.
The Safe and Sound at Sandy Hook Initiative aims to help communities improve school security plans and raise donations for security grants.
Alissa Parker and Michele Gay, both of whom lost daughters in the December 14 shooting, said school safety has been overshadowed nationally by other issues such as gun control.
The gunman, who killed 26 people at the elementary school, gained access to the building by shooting out a window.
The school followed well-regarded security protocols including requiring that visitors be buzzed in through a main entrance, but Gay said that there was no secondary line of defense against intruders.
On December 14, 2012, twenty children and six adult victims were fatally shot by Adam Lanza — who later killed himself — at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in the town of Newtown in the US state of Connecticut. Earlier in the day, the assailant killed his mother in another location.
There have been reports that the twenty-year-old killer suffered from a personality disorder, was on the antidepressant Prozac, and was fond of first-person shooter games.
Every year, more than 30,000 people are shot and killed in the US. The country averages 87 gun deaths each day as a function of gun violence, with an average of 183 injured, according to the University of Chicago Crime Lab and the Centers for Disease Control.
The year 2012 was a record setting year for gun sales in the US.
About 4.5 million firearms are sold annually in the US at a cost of 2 to 3 billion dollars.
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This article originally appeared on : Press TV