One of the best known groups, Sandy Hook Promise, pivoted afterward to campaigns that helped pass state laws limiting sales of some guns and, more recently, to community-based prevention programs. In the first months after the Newtown shooting, much of the families' advocacy work centred on gun control, particularly a failed effort in 2013 to get a federal law banning some semi-automatic weapons and expanding criminal and mental background checks for gun purchases. The vast majority of people don't go into schools and shoot them up," Vogl said. "If I can't stay optimistic I need to quit and find something else to do.
The effort was launched after the Newtown attack by Hensel and her husband, Jeremy Richman, who died by suicide in 2019. It's brutal because it triggers some of the darkest memories we have," said Vogl, executive director at the National Mental Health Innovation Center in Colorado, where the program is based. Like the Newtown gunman, the attacker in Texas was a young man who shot an older family member he lived with before opening fire with an AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle inside a nearby elementary school, slaughtering small and defenseless children.Īs details of Tuesday's shooting emerged, Matt Vogl was texting with Jennifer Hensel, whose daughter Avielle was killed in Newtown, and others involved in an advocacy effort named in the girl's honour, the Avielle Initiative, which promotes efforts to make mental health care more widely available through technology.
The attack in Uvalde has tested their resolve like no other. In the decade since 20 children and six educators were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary, some of their loved ones who channelled grief into advocacy have claimed success, gradually, in areas including gun safety, attitudes around gun violence, and mental health awareness. We're just literally transported back in time," said Gay, co-founder of the non-profit Safe and Sound Schools. "This one has been particularly devastating for me, for my family, for our community, Sandy Hook. It was all the more saddening in light of the work she has invested in the years since to promote school safety. Steven Universe is the first to break through this barrier and will hopefully pave the way for further queer representation to come.As the mother of a girl killed at Sandy Hook, Michele Gay was devastated by the massacre at a Texas elementary school, with its aching parallels to the 2012 attack in Connecticut. Many shows have tried to achieve this major kiss milestone recently, one of which, Mysticons, likely had a female-female kiss cut from an episode airing later this year.
The animation industry has had an endemic of queer censorship for years now, with execs at TV networks, production companies, and sponsors regularly censoring attempts at queer representation by animators. And on Wednesday’s episode “The Question”, Ruby proposed to Sapphire in what was the first same-sex wedding proposal involving a major character in children-oriented animation history. The two kiss at their wedding, also the first same-sex wedding involving a major character in American children-oriented animation history. The scene involved gems Ruby and Sapphire who usually combine to comprise Garnet, one of the show’s main characters. On tonight’s July 6th episode “Reunited”, Steven Universe made history by featuring the first same-sex kiss on the lips involving a major character in American children-oriented animation history.