police responding to reports of a shooting tragedy i got an automated phone message from the school that the schools were in lockdown and then we got the news that there had been a report of a shooting at sandy hook school and i ran out the door i just i headed to the school quickly there was a firehouse down the street from the school where they they were having everybody assembled and they were bringing all the students and personnel out of the school and having this having us meet there [Music] and my friend melissa had collected her second grader and um she asked her husband to to pick him up and bring him home and i said to melissa i said you should go home and be with him and she said no i'll stay here with you until you get daniel and then finally the governor came and said if you're missing someone they didn't survive [Music] we have funerals for olivia engel at one at st rosalina and dylan hockley in bethel same thing we've been doing just be outside respectful distance is there anything else we need in newtown daily developments beyond that happening anything we know there's nothing else today but dave is gonna be making some calls um yeah one of the teachers her step father is a reporter here and i think is sort of a defense mechanism i thought it couldn't be you know we we we'd know already something and um eventually um it was confirmed so you know a story that was difficult enough for all of us to report anyway was you know that much more emotional that much more difficult the sort of overarching issue that i'm looking at is whether or not sandy hook truly is a tipping point in the debate over gun violence and that whatever the solutions are out there these 20 innocent children lost this will make a difference and and i'm sort of examining that optimism against the reality that the gun control debate in america is exceedingly divisive it is a sad honor to be here today it's been one month since i lost my son dylan and 25 other families lost their loved ones the sandy hook promise is the start of our change this is a promise to do everything in our power to be remembered not as the town filled with grief and victims but as the place where real change began this is a promise to be open to all possibilities there is no agenda other than to make our communities and our nation a safer better place yeah uh matthew kaufman with the hartford current can you give us a sense of how active you intend to be or do you anticipate a point at which sandy hook promise would actually be testifying lobbying if you will we have to take the time to educate ourselves we have to take the time to have that dialogue but absolutely there's going to become a moment time where we're going to take those positions we're a platform for people to come together with one voice and actions to move us forward some of us who came together to start sandy hook promise our gun owners we hunt we target shoot we protect our homes we're collectors we teach our sons and daughters how to use guns safely passing a new law and then moving on is not the answer we have to fundamentally change our approach so that's uh it's pretty dead center pretty dead center a lot of people were surprised at how many guns nancy lanza owned and the type of guns that they were but in fact there's a strong gun culture in newtown a lot of hunters a lot of target shooters a lot of gun owners after december 14th everybody's been asking has it changed how i felt about firearms and to be honest no i mean this is how i thought do you feel yourself sort of under attack as as a responsible firearms owner i have friends who are devout nra members who believe that the second amendment gives everybody the right to own any firearm vice versa i have friends here in town who believe that all firearms should be confiscated and destroyed and i'm somewhere in the middle as far as a ban on 30 round clips that that's a it's a common sense law that would absolutely save lives and there's going to be a bunch of people upset that i said that do you feel uh oh no i'm i'm betraying you know the gun enthusiast community here that uh i will lose friends i'm sure of it we are heading to the home of a gentleman named scott ostras ostrovsky a newtown resident has kind of a private amateur shooting range on his property that has been the subject of a number of complaints by folks who live in the neighborhood we've gotten complaints of noise because we have a neighbor that's been more sensitive to the shooting in the past couple years and the police have been over here many times and they have said it was safe and we've become buddies with them there were complaints sort of from all over the town going to the police is there something that that changed a new town yes a lot more people live here now and a lot more outsiders have moved in and these are people that moving to newtown is big country to them these are people that in my opinion came from new york city or the suburbs of new york city or any urban environment and they're not used to what goes on in newton or what has been going on and then you get that conflict it's just you know growing pains in a situation like this each of these red dots represent a home from which a complaint was lodged with the police about the sound of gunfire near these homes i think this was 2010 the first part of 2012. 85 noise complaints related to shooting spread pretty broadly throughout the town so last year the town decided to do something about it how are you how are you nice to see you come in thanks i think it had just reached sort of a critical mass of a number of complaints so we set this ordinance up and it would say look you cannot shoot a gun in newtown unless you're doing legitimate hunting or you have a legitimate shooting range did this feel like controversial legislation ordinance to you as you were drafting it did you think not in the least absolutely not in the least i never expected that there would be any significant opposition to it they had two public hearings on it and there were a lot of people there and they were very vocal in opposition to the ordinance these are the minutes of the meetings that were held necessity should be the standard not simply prudence gunfire is a reminder of freedom one person notes that no one in attendance has spoken in favor of the ordinance so really you know very strong emotions over again what i think the town thought was a noise ordinance and it all had to do with their ability to maintain arms and somehow this would infringe their second amendment rights any inkling at all that you might be uh opening up the second amendment debate here no because the second amendment has nothing to do with shooting ranges it doesn't say the right to have a shooting range shall not be infringed this all happened in the months before the shootings and only a handful of people showed up in support of the ordinance the town meetings were dominated by pro-gun enthusiasts and the ordinance was tabled and that really illustrated the long history that newtown has with guns in fact the trade group for the whole gun industry is located right here the national shooting sports foundation within newtown is the nssf known i've talked to a number of people from town and said had no idea they were here yeah well connecticut is not well known now for being a state of great firearms ownership but ironically connecticut is where the firearms industry got its beginning all the major manufacturers of firearms and ammunition were generally centered in the connecticut river valley during the industrial revolution and that's why the national shooting sports foundation is in connecticut 2013 marks the 35th anniversary of the shot show this year over 630 000 square feet of exhibit space and more than 60 000 industry professionals ladies and gentlemen the state of our industry tonight in a word is misunderstood now who among us has not been moved by that unspeakable tragedy that was inflicted by a deranged man upon the children of newtown connecticut our very home at the nssf you had said the state of the industry is misunderstood and what's the biggest misunderstanding about it there are many according to the media we're nothing but a bunch of greedy fat cats who could care less about anything but making profit we're in this business because we love it rather than say that guns are bad what we say is guns are here guns are part of the fabric of our society and so what we need to do is to make sure that responsible gun owners make sure that they are not accessible to children or at-risk individuals if this woman had safely stored her guns inaccessible to her son when they were not in use this shooting would not have occurred in the month since 20 precious children and six brave adults were finally taken from us at sandy hook elementary more than 900 of our fellow americans have reportedly died at the end of a gun so i'm putting forward a specific set of proposals and in the days ahead i intend to use whatever weight this office holds to make them a reality our government is treading a thin thin line of becoming tyrannical and whether it's king george or barack hussein obama oppression is oppression gun control isn't about guns it's about control i only have one comment i will not comply [Applause] [Music] historically with the pro-gun lobby they've really become entrenched when challenged one of the questions i think is do 20 dead first graders change that equation so far it hasn't and i think what makes this such an intractable issue is even after sandy hook there are two camps the two camps are what we need to make our community safer is fewer guns and the other camp saying no what we need to make our community safer is more guns i don't know where the common ground is on this when it starts that far apart we're 48 days past today when did you start thinking you have a larger role to play here i i i feel like we've been forced onto a platform and i think it i i feel we feel a sense of responsibility in a field of obligation a sense of obligation now to to do whatever we can we're not political mark and i we're not you know um confrontational people um but i think we can't we can't allow ourselves to become complacent and just say that's how it is here in the united states you know these things happen that's that's unacceptable [Music] i have felt guilt and shame about the fact that in this particular topic i have never done a single thing i've been awakened and i will not be caught napping on the job from here on out i just need to do something because i'm like so many other people i can't stop thinking about what happened so i'm richard morato i have a first grader at sandy hook by the grace of god she was shoved in the bathroom along with her 14 friends and her teacher i won't begin to tell you the things that she says and draws right now and it's progressively getting worse so anything we can do for our community but i think we all need to get on the same page and if someone does speak tomorrow let's all be on the same page there's a huge silent majority out there that i believe is easily motivated not to be silent anymore if we give them the tools and that's what we're working towards when you go out and you advocate your power is a thousand one because people aren't showing up and the fact that you're from newtown is even more important i feel like our grief puts us in a unique position of power and i actually believe that we can with that power help level the playing field with the special interests that are out there i do think the tide is turning but our window right now is extremely limited this is going to move very very quickly [Music] i've never had to wait in line to get in the legislative office building i've never had to walk through a metal detector to get in the legislative office building so this is most definitely a moment in my state and the nation as well my name is raymond mazza resident of farmington connecticut i come here today in strong opposition of the proposed legislation including but not limited to house bill 5268 senate bill 140 senate bill 122 senate bill 124 and senate bill my daughter was a student in victoria soto's first grade class she survived she and eight other children ran from that room directly past him but not before witnessing her friends and her teacher slaughtered in front of her so here we are again another mass shooting another deranged perpetrator and the response is yet again banned guns something needs to change we need to be able to send our kids to school without fear as much as you might detest this thought at the end of the day the only protection against a bad man with a gun is a good man or woman with a gun in the right place at the right time guns are a fault line in this sort of varied american experience and and they have this capacity to sort of create this emotional cleave in a way that i think maybe abortion comes close to but other than that no other issue really separates the nation this substantially if the principal had come out of her office with a gun in her hand she might have at least mitigated the carnage we are incredulous at the types of assault and semi-automatic weapons and magazine clips that are considered legal a lot of people on both sides think that some change will come but it will come not as the result of a meeting of the minds of these two far apart camps but simply because one side or the other musters sufficient political power to get their way thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] for more on this and other frontline programs visit our website at pbs.org frontline frontline's raising adam lanza is available on dvd to order visit shoppbs.org or call 1-800 play pbs frontline is also available for download on itunes [Music] you