Shooting victims use Democratic convention to call for new gun controls

A second-grade teacher at Sandy Hook Elementary School described to the Democratic National Convention on Thursday the horror of hearing 154 gunshots, mowing down 20 first-graders as she sang and read to her class to try to drown out the terror.

She was joined by a mother whose daughter was killed in the shooting in Uvalde, Texas, a mother whose daughter was killed in an unsolved shooting, and a student whose friend was killed in a shooting. Each of them demanded action.

“Instead of worrying about taking my test, I started worrying about living to take another test,” said the student, Edgar Vilchez. “I learned how to run, how to hide and drop.”

The searing testimony was followed by former Rep. Gabby Giffords, who was critically wounded in a 2011 shooting at an outdoor town hall in Arizona and who has become a leading gun control advocate.

“Kamala can beat the gun lobby,” Ms. Giffords said.

Ms. Harris has called for universal background checks on gun sales, “red flag” laws to remove guns from people deemed worrying and a ban on some semiautomatic rifles that critics label “assault weapons.”

Democrats have struggled with gun control as a political issue for years, dating back to the 2000 race. Their nominee, Al Gore, may have lost the election in part because of his fervent embrace of gun control.

Four years later, nominee John Kerry sought to make a play for gun rights voters, including a bizarre geese-hunting photo op late in the campaign.

This year, Democrats are still trying to thread the needle by flashing images of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, their vice presidential nominee, on a hunt.

“I know guns. I’m a veteran, I’m a hunter, and I was a better shot than most Republicans in Congress, and I’ve got the trophies to prove it,” Mr Walz said. “But I’m also a dad. I believe in the Second Amendment, but I also believe our first responsibility is to keep our kids safe.”

Mr. Walz is unlikely to make much headway with gun activists.

Although he received high ratings from gun rights groups, he has drifted out of favor as he embraced new restrictions as governor. This year alone, he pressed the Minnesota Legislature to expand background checks on gun sales, limit the capacity of ammunition magazines for sale, and limit sales of semiautomatic rifles for those younger than 21.

President Biden, no longer running, raised gun control as an unchecked box on his to-do list.

“What makes me ashamed when I travel the world, which I do — more children in America are killed by a gunshot than any other cause,” he said. “That’s why Kamala and I are proud [that] we beat the NRA when we passed the first major bipartisan gun safety law in 30 years.”

That was a reference to the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, a 2022 law enacted in the wake of Uvalde that stiffened penalties for straw gun purchasers and others who traffic firearms and mandated more intense background checks on gun buyers younger than 21.