School shootingSandy Hook commission’s final report calls for changes likely to prove controversial

Shortly after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, Governor Dannel P. Malloy appointed a commission made up of mental health experts, first responders, educators, and political leaders to make recommendations on how to prevent future school shootings throughout the country. Since then, there have been more than 100 school shootings in the United States, said Scott D. Jackson, mayor of Hamden, Connecticut and chairman of the sixteen-member Sandy Hook Advisory Commission.

“We must do something different. We must do something better,” said Jackson. “While the circumstances are different in each one of them, the facts are clear. Our schools should be sanctified places, and they are not,” Jackson added.

The commission has released a 277-page report containing fifty-two recommendations, which includes adding locks on every classroom door, trigger locks to be sold with each firearm, and a larger focus on the problem of mental health services and how to ensure troubled individuals receive care before they cause harm. Adam Lanza, the 20-year-old shooter, had a history of mental health issues and just before he attacked students and faculty at Sandy Hook, he shot his mother to death.

Malloy acknowledges that budget constraints will make it difficult to implement many of the recommendations, while other recommendations, including the call for trigger locks to be sold with all firearms, would be politically challenging. After the shootings, President Barack Obama pressed Congress for tougher national gun legislation. His efforts to widen background checks for gun buyers and limit sales of high-capacity magazines failed. Strong opposition to Obama’s efforts came from gun-rights advocates who see attempts to change firearms laws as an infringement on their constitutional right to bear arms.

The Los Angeles Times notes that some recommendations from the Sandy Hook commission likely to face opposition include: allowing ammunition purchases only for registered firearms; requiring people to renew their firearm permits at regular intervals; limiting the amount of ammunition that could be purchased at any given time; and requiring gun clubs to report “negligent or reckless behavior” with a firearm to state officials.

The commission’s report took into consideration testimony from more than 100 people since its first meeting in January 2013. Wayne Sandford, a commission member and the former deputy commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Emergency Management and Homeland Security, said it would be tough to find money to fund some of the recommendations especially those focused on improving access to mental health programs. Nevertheless, the state needs to find a way to make some changes to “save the children in the future,” he said. Considering the number of school shootings that have occurred since Sandy Hook, “It’s only a matter of time, the way we’re going, that there will be another shooting in Connecticut.”