Some have said that this PSA is difficult to watch.
And it is.
That’s the point.
This is a short glimpse of what our children and our teachers live in fear of, on a daily basis. It is happening in communities all across our country.
At first glance, the video created by the gun-violence prevention organization, Sandy Hook Promise, created in the wake of the ’12 CT school shooting seems like “just another back-to-school ad”.
The first student says gleefully into the camera, “This year my mom got me the perfect bag for back-to-school.”
In few seconds, it becomes VERY clear that something else is happening. Gunfire erupts behind the students as you see them running for their lives and using anything they can grab to protect themselves, like colored pencils and craft scissors. As one student takes off her new sock to create a tourniquet around her friend’s bloody leg who is in agonizing pain, the viewer has to be wincing, perhaps even looking away…..
And that’s not even the most, absolutely terrifying scene.
Crouched in a dark bathroom stall, a softy weeping student perches on the toilet (so the shooter cannot see her feet). She thanks her mom for her new cell phone. And then ..she texts to her mother, “I love you mom.” as she hears the bathroom door open and ominous footsteps get closer and closer.
The 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting left 20 first-graders and 6 educators dead.