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.<\/p>\n
Parents of Sandy Hook Elementary School victims have united to call for more focus on school security in the United States.\n<\/p>\n
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.\n<\/p>\n
The Safe and Sound at Sandy Hook Initiative aims to help communities improve school security plans and raise donations for security grants.\n<\/p>\n
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.\n<\/p>\n
The gunman, who killed 26 people at the elementary school, gained access to the building by shooting out a window.\n<\/p>\n
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.\n<\/p>\n
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.\n<\/p>\n
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.\n<\/p>\n
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.\n<\/p>\n
The year 2012 was a record setting year for gun sales in the US.\n<\/p>\n
About 4.5 million firearms are sold annually in the US at a cost of 2 to 3 billion dollars.\n<\/p>\n
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