The families of Sandy Hook Promise have teamed up to unleash one hell of a short film on the world on the sixth anniversary of the day that changed their lives forever. December 14, 2012 saw 20 children and six teachers murdered in the school shooting that should have ended the gun control debate full stop, but didn’t.
Called “Point of View,” the PSA, produced by top-tier ad agency BBDO New York, and directed by Snow White and the Huntsman’s Rupert Sanders, takes a different approach to showing the dark realities of school shootings, since dead children and sobbing families still hasn’t seemed to have much of an impact on those American legislators who have been bought and sold by the ever-declining NRA.
Please, do find the time to watch it through till the end … then watch it again, and look a little closer.
Next, head over to Sandy Hook Promise and see if you saw the warning signs sprinkled throughout the video. I certainly didn’t catch them all.
Please share this video widely, and keeping the following facts in mind.
- Most mass shootings are planned for 6 months to a year. In almost every documented case, warning signs were given off that were not understood, were not acted upon quickly or was not shared with someone who could help
- In 4 out of 5 school shootings, at least one other person had knowledge of the attacker's plan but failed to report it
- 70% of people who commit suicide tell someone their plans or give some other type of warning signs
Sandy Hook Promise was founded in 2014 to educate people about these red flags, so that these tragedies, and other deadly acts of gun violence, like suicide, can be stopped before they happen.
SHP co-founder Nicole Hockley, whose son Dylan would be 12 today if he hadn’t been murdered, says she looks forward to a day when we no longer need the work of organizations like Sandy Hook Promise.
“Honestly, I want to put my organization out of business,” she said. “I don’t want us to exist because I don’t want to have this need anymore.”
Sadly, Hockley’s wish doesn’t seem likely to be coming true any time soon. According to a recent study from the Department of Homeland Defense and Security, 2018 marks the worst year for school shootings in recorded history.