This week marks the six month anniversary of the deadly Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings in Newtown. As WNPR's Jeff Cohen reports, one anti-gun group is planning a national bus drive to commemorate the day.
Erica Lafferty lost her mother, Dawn Hochsprung, on December 14. Hochsprung was the principal at Sandy Hook.
"For the past six months, I've been living without my best friend. Without my mom. I've been planning a wedding without her. And that's happening to 33 additional families every single day. And it will continue to happen until congress decides to make a change to protect our country."
Thirty three. That's the number of people that die every day from guns, according to the group Mayors Against Illegal Guns. The organization -- co-chaired by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino -- is starting a bus tour this week. Going to 25 states, the tour will praise politicians who supported new federal gun legislation, and it will shame those who didn't.
Mark Glaze is the group's executive director. Despite congressional failure to pass new guns laws on background checks, Glaze says his group is changing minds on gun control. He pointed to several new state gun laws, including Connecticut's, as examples. And he also says his organization is willing to work with the NRA.
"We remain ready to compromise, as long as that compromise is one that saves lives and doesn't weaken the current system and kind of meets the moment when the public is really focused on this issue and ready to make generational progress."
Friday marks the anniversary of the Newtown school shootings that left 26 people dead.
For WNPR, I'm Jeff Cohen.