Gun control calls grow louder as Newtown families give voice to grief

Undeterred by failure in the Senate, a growing movement is attempting to take on the NRA at its own game – and win



Terri Rousseau is a member of what she calls "the saddest club in the world". She was forced to join it on 14 December last year when her daughter, Lauren, a teacher at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, was shot dead along with all 14 of the young children in her classroom.

On that day, Rousseau was thrown together with the other members of club: the families of 26 children and educators who died in Newtown, along with survivors and victims' relatives from previous mass shootings at Columbine, Virginia Tech, Tucson, Oak Creek and Aurora. The group acts as an informal self-help resource, providing mutual support, advice and consolation.

Almost six months after the Newtown tragedy, a new and far more significant phenomenon has begun to emerge from this unique collective. Out of its shared suffering, a political movement is beginning to coalesce that is changing the nature of the gun debate in America and posing a formidable challenge to the country's leading pro-gun lobby, the National Rifle Association.

After decades in which the NRA was assumed to hold a vice-like grip over gun policy in the country – its will pointless to resist by politicians in state assemblies, Congress and the White House alike – an alternative voice has suddenly surfaced, with the potential to redress the balance. At its front and centre are the Newtown families, who are turning grief into a political force to be reckoned with....

Read More: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/29/gun-control-newtown-shooting-nra