Nicole Hockley

Newtown, Connecticut, is a place That reminds you That The Threat of gun violence is everywhere In America .

Set in forested hills, with the treeline punctuated by white church steeples, a road runs from the centre of town past the pleasant New England homes and across a stream to reach, in a few short minutes, the Sandy Hook Elementary School.

It was here, 10 Years ago this December, That a 20-year-old resident shot and killed 26 children and staff members before turning The Gun on himself.

Today, Newtown's flag is at half mast, a gesture of empathy from one place so deeply scarred by an inexplicable act of brutality to another.

Nicole Hockley is a founding member of the Sandy Hook Promise Foundation and I meet her, sitting outside The Office on a picnic table in the Warm Spring sunshine, to talk about The Tragedy in Uvalde, Texas almost 2,000 Miles Away .

Her six-year-old son, Dylan, was one of those murdered at Sandy Hook .

" All shootings reopen wounds That - every Time I think Are perhaps somewhat healed - Are torn open again, " she tells me.

" But because it is so hauntingly similar to What Happened at Sandy Hook School, it hit closer to home in a way That I hadn't expected and I went into a state of shock. "

Change through legislation, she knows, is an impossible fight and so her organisation has had to make a strategic decision to focus instead on a much more practical Solution - helping schools and communities identify potential killers in advance.

She estimates That their system of anonymous tip-offs has saved as many as 296 lives, and as she speaks, there Are tears in Her Eyes - as well as a sense of deep despair and anger That these things Are still happening.

" Your 'thoughts and prayers' Are meaningless unless there's something substantive behind it That backs it up, and lots of these politicians don't take any action whatsoever, " she says.

" So their words Are meaningless. "

That despair at America's inability to find a Solution has long been echoed by US presidents, confronted with The Job of consoling grieving communities Torn Apart by a problem That seemingly has no Solution .

Following the 1966 University of Texas shooting, President Lyndon Johnson called for urgent legislation and lamented the sway of a " powerful gun lobby" when the new regulations fell well short of his ambitions.

Firearms sales have risen sharply ever since, reaching a point - Four Years before the Sandy Hook Massacre - at which there were more guns In America than people.

Gun-related deaths have been rising too - Now at well over 100 A Day including Suicides - and although mass shootings account for a tiny fraction of the total, they've been seared into The Nation 's consciousness.

The Columbine Massacre , President Clinton said, " pierced the soul of America".

After Virginia Tech, President Bush called for a Task Force to prevent future tragedies.

But rather than change, it's the lack of it That seems inevitable, as a result of a complex mixture of a deeply-entrenched culture of gun ownership, the increasing political partisanship based on two fundamentally opposing views, and - Underneath it All - the immovable object of the constitutional right to bear arms.

As President Joe Biden found himself struggling for answers like his predecessors, hopelessly pleading " Where in God's name is our backbone? " The Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz was speaking of the need to defend lawful gun rights.

" Inevitably when there's a murder of this kind, you see politicians trying to politicise it, you see Democrats and a lot of folks in the media whose immediate Solution is to try to restrict the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens, That doesn't work, " he told reporters.

He suggested The Answer was not fewer guns, but more.

" We know from past experience That The Most effective tool for keeping kids safe is armed law enforcement on the campus, " He Said .

Nicole Hockley may not be hopeful That things will change any time soon, but she remains optimistic about a future belonging to people like her eldest son Jake, who survived The Attack That killed his brother Dylan.

" You've got kids who All they've known for their life is school shootings. And That , I think, is going to create The Change , " she tells me.

" My son who survived That Day , who was in The School when it happened, he's about to graduate High School , he'll turn 18 In July and he'll become a voter. "

On the Sandy Hook fire station roof, there's a star for each School Child and staff member killed and they glint bright in the sunlight.

Back Then , President Obama said: " We can't tolerate this any more. "

Yet 10 Years on, the question of How To stop American children being murdered with military-grade assault rifles in their schools remains in the same desperate need of an answer.

Source of news: bbc.com