Snow blankets teddy bears last December in Newtown, Conn., at a sidewalk memorial to the first-graders and educators shot to death at Sandy Hook Elementary School. /AP photo
Nothing.
The first anniversary of the mass shooting that claimed the lives of 20 first-graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School will soon pass. Nothing has been done to stop the spread of military-style assault firearms. Nothing has been done to stop criminals and those suffering from severe mental illness from gaining access to these weapons.
A century ago, it took the death of 146 people in New York's Triangle Shirtwaist Factory inferno to curb sweat shops in America. Most of the dead were young women.
When it comes to entrenched U.S. political forces such as the gun industry, it apparently can require the wholesale slaughter of innocents to dislodge them.
How many people will have to die in a school or some other public place before constitutional limits on military-style firearms are established? Will the death of 20 first-graders be meaningless or the beginning of the kind of changes that have saved countless worker lives since the Triangle Fire?
On March 25, 1911, A New York City police officer stands guard over Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire victims as he watches the sweatshop blaze rage more than 100 feet above. /Image via thehistoryblog.com
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