Survivors of Sandy Hook speak about their trauma

Brut America

"We are the kids that have grown up with this trauma."  They survived the Sandy Hook shooting when they were 8 years old. Now, at 18, they are fighting to end gun violence.   #marchforourlives #sandyhook

Transcript

00:00We are the kids that have grown up with this trauma, and now we're marching for more kids in the same situation.

00:13The media often pays attention when there's an aggressive increase in shootings,

00:17but the thing is that we're always here, we're always dealing with our trauma,

00:20we're always trying to get through every day.

00:22Antioch was so public and there was so much centered around it, and now we're grown up,

00:26and to see another shooting with these kids dealing with such a similar trauma,

00:30to show them how we've grown up and how we've dealt with it.

00:32A lot of people have asked us to go on about what they can expect to experience,

00:36and I just think that's the real devastating part.

00:38We're asking for respect and we're asking for people to care about our safety and our health and well-being,

00:43and that is just too much for some of the people, even the people in Newtown who came out

00:48and yelled at us at ordinance meetings and called our trauma hurt feelings

00:53and told us that we were being irrational.

00:56They call us the emotional argument, and by all means, I think we're logical.

01:01Because we've come to the point where, I mean, I'm an 18-year-old and I can say this much about guns.

01:07I mean, I didn't think this would be my life, I didn't think I'd know this much about semi-automatics or AR-15s,

01:12but I'm standing here and I know all this and I've been fighting for this,

01:15and is this really what you want your future for your kids to be?

01:18After what happened in Texas, that obviously brought up a lot of emotions for all of us,

01:22I think, because it was another elementary school and also it's just another add-on to the slew of shootings

01:28that have happened in this year, last year, the past 10 years.

01:31I thought it was really important to get out here and try and put my face out there

01:36and to tell people we are real people.

01:39Because I think sometimes when you are victims of a high-profile mass shooting,

01:42they forget that you are real people, and we grew up and we exist,

01:46and I want to get our names and have us be people that you can have empathy for,

01:52not just used to exploit for political gain.

01:55We've grown up scared of police officers who are always in our school there to tell us that they are keeping us safe,

02:01but their guns strapped to their hips doesn't really bring us that sense of security,

02:05and that's something that people don't understand unless you're listening to that gunfire that we did.

02:09We're not saying we're going to take away all your guns, but in my belief, you don't need an AR-15 to keep your family safe.

02:15Guns, the only use for them is to kill, the only use for them is to hurt,

02:19and they need to be regulated, and there's no reason for teenagers to have access to semi-automatics.

02:27We're just asking for safety to be prioritized.

02:30If you're a responsible gun owner, then I don't understand what you have to fear from getting a background check.

02:36If you want to keep your family safe, if that's the reason you're holding a firearm,

02:40why don't you properly store it so that no one in your family gains access to it,

02:43or someone who isn't responsible enough to hold it gains access to it.

02:46We're not asking to completely erase that Second Amendment, to take away people's right to hold a firearm.

02:52I personally will never hold a fire in my life, that is my belief, but I'm not pushing my beliefs on other people,

02:56I'm merely asking for them to prioritize their safety, our safety, and their family's safety.

03:01♪♪♪

03:11I'm a senior, and so is Maggie, so we're graduating on Wednesday,

03:14and it's been really hard to think about leaving this community because there is,

03:18while there are people around us, like, here at the march with other survivors,

03:22like, they understand, but they don't always, because an elementary school shooting is so different from other shootings,

03:28and it's weird because we've grown up with it, and we've grown around it,

03:32so I think community has just been, like, a really important part of the healing process,

03:37and being around people that understand, and will, like, let you just leave when you can't handle something anymore.

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