Newtown

Facebook has apparently agreed to remove pages that exploit the December shootings in Newtown, Connecticut.  As WNPR's Jeff Cohen reports, this comes hours after politicians reached out to the social media giant. Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal said Facebook users set up unofficial tribute pages to Newtown victims.  Some used their images, others tried to raise money on their behalf, but none had permission. Blumenthal said these pages violated Facebook's own terms of service.

The superintendent of schools for Aurora, Colorado spoke to Governor Dannel Malloy's Sandy Hook Advisory Commission today/Friday. Aurora was the scene of a mass shooting last July. WNPR's Jeff Cohen reports. Malloy's task force is meeting to come up with policy recommendations after the Newtown shootings.

All this week, PBS has been airing special coverage looking back at December’s tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut. Frontline teamed up with the Hartford Courant to look at the life of the gunman and guns themselves in America.

“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," says Hartford Courant reporter Matt Kauffman who took part in the Frontline documentary.

Vice President Joe Biden was in Connecticut to talk about gun control measures at a conference with Governor Dannel Malloy. As WNPR's Jeff Cohen reports, an otherwise somber governor did a little bit to try and make the crowd laugh. Without the vice president in the room, Malloy gave his remarks and said that anytime you get to spend part of your day with Joe Biden is a good day.

And then he said this: "I'm going to bet that he's going to mention either his grandmother or his grandfather at some point in his talk with us." Enter the vice president.

This week, PBS is airing a week's worth of specials on the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut. After Newtown continues PBS' reporting on the events of December 14th, the gun debate and the neuroscience of violence.

One goal of the state legislature's commission on Newtown is to find bipartisan consensus.  But as WNPR's Jeff Cohen reports, defining consensus is tricky.

America’s debate over guns was in Newtown High School last night - as hundreds gathered to give emotional testimony to state lawmakers. It was happening in Washington too, where Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal re-affirmed his support for tighter gun control, invoking the “Sandy Hook Promise” group formed by parents of the victims.

Today, we’ll take a look at what we’ve heard in this week of public hearings on guns, school safety and mental health. 

The Sandy Hook shootings have resulted in a special bipartisan task force of the Connecticut legislature.  Last week’s public hearing dealt with recommendations to enhance school safety.  Today’s lengthy hearing is about reducing gun violence, and tomorrow they’ll talk about increasing access to mental health care.

We decided, after much debate, to do a show addressing the bizarre and unpalatable conspiracy theories that have arisen in the wake of the Newtown massacre.

Yesterday, President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden announced 23 executive orders and proposed laws in response to the horrific shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

"No one can know for certain if this senseless act could have been prevented, but we all know we have a moral obligation -- a moral obligation to do everything in our power to diminish the prospect that something like this could happen again," said Biden.

After Newtown, school nurses and teachers have been asking for training to identify the early signs of trauma in children. The Child Health and Development Institute held two training sessions last week for school personnel in Connecticut with several more planned in the following weeks. 

Joining us this morning is Dr. Robert Franks, a trauma expert and Vice-President of The Child Health and Development Institute.

Gun violence survivors and consumer advocates gathered at a  Wal-Mart store near Newtown Tuesday. They’re calling on the nation’s largest gun retailer to end assault weapon sales.

Nearly 300,000 Wal-Mart customers have signed an online petition urging the retail giant to stop selling assault weapons and munitions.

About sixty people met to deliver the petition to the Wal-Mart in Danbury, a few miles away from the site of the December massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Among the crowd were survivors of gun violence.

Connecticut legislators are establishing a bipartisan task force to recommend possible legislation to prevent gun violence, provide mental health care and improve school safety. As WNPR's Jeff Cohen reports, this comes a month after the shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown.

The recommendations on gun safety from Vice President Biden to President Obama include: requiring background checks for all gun sales, banning the sale of certain rapid-fire weapons and ensuring mentally ill people can’t acquire guns

Other proposals like these are being considered at the state houses in Hartford and Albany. Since the Sandy Hook shootings, we’ve been talking a lot about guns: about magazine capacities and 2nd Amendment rights.  About “assault weapons” and arming teachers.

Last month, on December 13, Governor Malloy appeared on our show for his monthly visit. We talked about the budget and the upcoming legislative session, and the issues he hoped to work on in the coming year.  

The next morning, everything changed.

The investigation into last month's shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School may take months to complete. The governor says the shooter's motive may never be known.

The children of Sandy Hook Elementary school go back to class today, in a new school in Monroe.

Officials of that district are putting a premium on the safety of these students - physically and emotionally - as they try to return their lives to normal.

But around the country, students are heading back to a school today where they DON’T feel safe - whether it’s from bullying, exclusion, or violence that projects from outside the school walls.

One of the verbal melodies that sustained me during the past year was the notion that people can be divided into two camps: those who think they're living in a comedy and those who think they dwell in a drama.

The sound of bells reverberated throughout the nation and in towns across Connecticut Friday, December 21 at 9:30 a.m. to remember the twenty children and six adults who were murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School one week ago.

Church bells across the state and the nation tolled 26 times to honor those killed one week ago at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

So much has changed about where we live in this last week. And we've spent this time trying to grapple with the emotions - and the possible solutions. But after so much talk - and so much more to come - we thought we'd take today to listen.

John Woodall is a psychiatrist whose work has taken him to Bosnia, New Orleans, Uganda, and to New York City after 9/11.

Banning guns and ammunition—does it make sense and will it make us safer? We have a Connecticut police lieutenant with twenty-six years of experience, a consultant internationally on violence prevention. We look at whether gun bans will work and what we need to do to protect soft targets like schools and churches. He's frank; he's seen a lot in the communities he visits. It's not just America's problem, it turns out. It's a worldwide problem.

Watching the coverage of Newtown unfold on Friday, I grew upset by the number of wrong reports.

The tragedy in Newton has consumed our lives for the last several days. We’ll continue to have that conversation - as Connecticut attempts to heal. But today, we welcome in two guests to talk about something that many people in our state turn to as a relief - a respite - and a place to gather: Sports.

The University of Connecticut has been built into a top academic and research institution - but nobody will deny that its national prominence is fueled in large part by its successful sports programs.

Beyond the horror of the childern and teachers killed, why do mass shootings, like the one in Newtown, affect us so deeply?

We hear statistics all the time about how unlikely an event like this is -- how schools are actually safer.

Here’s Daniel Webster from the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research last night on NPR’s All Things Considered:

Hundreds of people from across the region continue to pay their respects in Newtown today, where a makeshift memorial has sprung up just down the street from Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Mourners leave bouquets of roses and posters with words of prayer and the names of 27 victims. Children have tucked toys and stuffed animals among the cluster of decorated wreaths and little Christmas trees. And people who’ve never met embrace each other.