Newtown Massacre Prompts Gun Control Rally in Teaneck
Dozens gathered at a Cedar Lane rally to call for stricter gun laws and an end to violence following elementary school shooting in Connecticut.
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Residents rallied Saturday night in Teaneck to call for stricter gun control laws in the wake of a shooting rampage that left 20 children and six adults dead at a Connecticut elementary school.
The crowd, organized quickly through the Internet and by the Ethical Culture Society, held candles and carried signs calling for tighter regulation of firearms and an end to gun violence.
Teaneck resident Jim Norman said he hoped to continue holding rallies and push elected leaders to act.
"We feel it is time to move from mourning to action," he said. "This is the first in this area of what we hope will be non-stop action until America comes to its senses."
Norman, a parent who said he was brought to tears by the killings, called for restrictions on the purchase of military-style weapons. Adam Lanza, identified by state police as the 20-year-old Newtown gunman, killed 26 people at the school with a high-powered rifle, shooting children as young as six multiple times and inflicting what the state medical examiner described as "devastating" injuries.
Weapons linked to the shooting were legally registered to Lanza's mother Nancy, who he killed before opening fire at the school, according to reports.
The national debate over gun control has emerged following other mass killings in recent years, but did not produce any major revisions to federal gun laws. Norman said a strong public outcry was the only way to force policy changes.
"It won't make a difference unless people rise up and make it make a difference and that's what we're doing," he said of the Teaneck effort.
Art Vatsky, of Teaneck, pointed to the efforts of state and congressional leaders.
"This gratuitous bloodshed with automatic weapons, quantities of ammunition and body armor was not meant to be protected by the Second Amendment," he told Patch after the rally.
While the Newtown rampage marked another grim milestone - the deadliest mass shooting at a U.S. elementary school - a Brooklyn social worker at the rally said young people were impacted by violence on a daily basis.
"I've been in schools where every year there's another murder from a student, to a teacher to a mother of a child," she said. "I want us not to forget about the kids everyday who are dying."
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Art Vatsky
9:46 pm on Sunday, December 16, 2012
I just heard Pres. Obama speak at Newtown. His words need reading and repeating. These events are rare but not rare enough. The President has been to four in four years. That is far too much. Those who contemplate these actions should know their names and faces will not be held up for society to see. Instead they will be forgotten and go unmentioned. Not even momentary notoriety for these people.
zizi
12:37 am on Monday, December 17, 2012
Pres. Obama has done zilch since he took office about this very issue.... the speeches do nothing to change the realities on the ground..... I wish that this as not the case..... I voted for him both times......
shimon baum
8:43 am on Monday, December 17, 2012
Zizi didn't you learn your lesson the first time?
zizi
2:10 pm on Monday, December 17, 2012
I was choosing less of the ........
Lynn
10:46 am on Monday, December 17, 2012
Shimon, Obama is not alone in failure to act on this issue. The Assault Weapon Ban expired under his predecessor. Congress has not wanted to renew it. We are citizens are the ones who must act. It is striking to me that Adam's mother owned the guns that ultimately killed her and the children. What does that say about us as a a society when middle class mothers living in suburbia feel a need to own automatic assault weapons?
tony g2010
2:56 pm on Monday, December 17, 2012
Sadly any firearm is lethal. An ordinary shotgun with specific ammunition would have caused the same if not more damage. The main features of the assault weapon ban was limiting the amount of ammunition a clip for a handgun or rifle holds, someone simply needs to buy more clips with less ammunition in them. Clips can be replaced in seconds. These weapons were semi-automatic, meaning that each round is fired with a pull of the trigger. Automatic weapons keep firing as long as the trigger is held. Ironically the mother probably had the weapons for protection. With over 250+ million weapons already in the US tighter gun laws will not prevent tragedies like this from happening. I do not have an answer, but can only hope that all gun owners take measures to prevent others from getting their hands on these weapons.
I. Robert Ehrlich
11:51 am on Monday, December 17, 2012
Note that all of the mass killings have occurred where guns are prohibited. Had more responsible people had a gun, the perpetrator would have been stopped before he/she could have done so much violence.
John Santaella
9:02 pm on Monday, December 17, 2012
Oh, please! Let's stop this 'if more people were armed' nonsense. A few months ago there was an incident in NYC near the Empire State Building where an individual targeted one person and killed that person. Nine other people were injured by gunfire and they were all shot by cops who are trained with weapons. So, please, let's think this through. In Aurora the same argument was presented. I guarantee if people in the movie theater had been armed the bloodshed and death would have been greater.
Tee Smyth
1:37 pm on Monday, December 17, 2012
I am of the opinion that when one decides to become a murderer, he/she will murder at all costs. (With a gun, a knife, a bomb, etc). Yes, we need tougher gun control. I do not believe that any private individual should own automatic weapons. That said, the gun wasn't the issue here. The person behind the gun is the issue.
Jim Dunleavy
2:18 pm on Monday, December 17, 2012
So, I. Robert Ehrich, you want to arm the teachers? I assume then that the message you want to send to children is that it is ok to carry weapons in our society? It is clear to me that where are guns, people get shot, where there are no guns, no one gets shot. While pro gun lobbys fight for the rights of gun owners to have them, the rights these children and brave adults had taken away by guns and the people who own them was the right to life, life, berty and the pursuit of happiness. Gun advocates seem to have a "right" that flies in conflict with these other rights? Which ones are more important?
Esther Sandrof
4:21 pm on Monday, December 17, 2012
Robert Ehrich - You are absolutely right. The massacre in which 13 people were killed and 29 people wounded in 2009 could have been avoided If only someone had a gun at Fort Hood.
John Santaella
9:02 pm on Monday, December 17, 2012
And this should show us something, that even in places where people are trained in the use of weapons these weapons are not carried around.
Legal Notice
10:13 am on Sunday, December 23, 2012
Political grandstanding in Teaneck is a Joke. Teaneck an ultra liberal enclave ghetto has zero effect on public policy in America. Americans voted last week with their wallets when they purchased all the Guns in Southern Walmarts last week. They know about Obamas hypocrisy arming the mexican Drug cartels with Machine guns in. As a legal matter we already have the strictest gun control laws in the union. The second Amendment aint about duck hunting and is going no where so get over it. Take some of the $ 300 k that the fat school Supers get and hire an armed guard for $ 40 k
John Santaella
11:58 am on Sunday, December 23, 2012
Armed guards? Are we still calling for more guns? Retired cops so they can double dip? No thank you.