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Newtown: Obama Addresses Shooting One Year Later, Calls for Stricter Gun Laws

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Today marks the first anniversary of the second deadliest school shooting by one person in history. On December 14, 2012, 20-year-old Adam Lanza first killed his mother and then went to Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut where he went on a five-minute shooting rampage. The lives of six staff members and 20 first-grade students were taken during the shooting.

Many people are taking a moment today to remember the victims of the atrocity, including President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle. The couple remembered the victims of the shooting at the White House today. The Obamas lit a candle for each Sandy Hook victim in the Map Room at 9:29 a.m.

After the Obamas lit the 26 candles, the president acknowledged the Newtown shooting during his weekly radio address and touched on gun control. Despite efforts to create stronger gun control laws over the past year, nothing has changed, something the president is begging Americans to work on. Check out excerpts from his address below.

One year ago today, a quiet, peaceful town was shattered by unspeakable violence. Six dedicated school workers and 20 beautiful children were taken from our lives forever.

As parents, as Americans, the news filled us with grief. Newtown is a town like so many of our hometowns. The victims were educators and kids that could have been any of our own. And our hearts were broken for the families that lost a piece of their heart; for the communities changed forever; for the survivors, so young, whose innocence was torn away far too soon.

But beneath the sadness, we also felt a sense of resolve–that these tragedies must end, and that to end them, we must change.

And on this anniversary of a day we will never forget, that’s the example we should continue to follow. Because we haven’t yet done enough to make our communities and our country safer. We have to do more to keep dangerous people from getting their hands on a gun so easily. We have to do more to heal troubled minds. We have to do everything we can to protect our children from harm and make them feel loved, and valued, and cared for.

And as we do, we can’t lose sight of the fact that real change won’t come from Washington. It will come the way it’s always come from you. From the American people.

While many people are remembering the Newtown shooting victims on Twitter, quite a few folks are irritated that the president used the shooting to bring up gun control.

[Image via YouTube]

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