Sandy Hook Survivors First Graders to Vote in Their First Presidential Election

Grace Fischer survived the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre by staying quiet and focused while her first-grade teacher quietly read The Nutcracker to her.

She then spent the rest of her childhood watching mostly from the sidelines as dozens of similar shootings devastated other schools across the country.

Now 18, Fischer will vote in her first presidential election in November. It’s a monumental moment, nearly 12 years after she survived one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history, and it gave her and her peers hope they could make a difference.

“This is a huge turning point in our lives,” said Fischer, who was 6 years old when a gunman killed 20 first-graders and six teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14, 2012.

Activists at the time hoped the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, would be a watershed moment and spark significant legislative action, said Emma Brown, executive director of Giffords, a gun safety group founded by former Rep. Gabby Giffords — a shooting survivor.

“The country was forced to look at this problem in a visceral, horrific way,” Brown said. “The loss of all those kids in their classrooms was so unfathomable and so horrific that even politicians and people who tried to pretend that this wasn’t a growing problem in this country couldn’t deny it for the first time.”

Since then, states have passed hundreds of gun safety laws, but major federal bills, including a ban on semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity magazines, have not passed.

After the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas, the Trump administration imposed a federal ban on bump stocks, or gun accessories that allow semiautomatic rifles to fire more quickly. But the Supreme Court struck down the ban this year.

Friday marked 20 years since the 1994 federal assault weapons ban expired. In the meantime, mass shootings have become more common.

Since 2013, at least 122 people have been killed in 64 planned school shootings, according to NBC News. Most recently, on Sept. 4, two students and two teachers were killed at Georgia’s Apalachee High School, allegedly by a 14-year-old suspect with an AR-style rifle, authorities said.

On Thursday, the Johns Hopkins University Center for Solutions to Gun Violence said guns are the leading cause of death among children and teens, killing more people in the U.S. between the ages of 1 and 17 than car accidents and cancer. For the third year in a row, guns are the leading cause of death among children and teens.

“We were told this would change everything,” said Emma Ehrens, 18, who was next to the Sandy Hook shooter as he shot her classmates. “It really breaks your heart a little bit more every time.”

Ehrens, Fischer and two other Sandy Hook first-year survivors who spoke to NBC News said they hope to turn the tide by electing Vice President Kamala Harris as president.

“To me, it’s obvious,” said Lilly Wasilnak, 18, who survived the crash.

The teens met Harris for the first time at the White House on National Gun Violence Awareness Day June 6, as they were preparing to graduate from high school. They shared their individual accounts of the shooting with Harris, who thanked them for their courage.

“None of you should have had the experience you had,” Harris told them, according to a video released by the White House. “Know that you guys are moving the needle.”

Harris has said protecting students from gun violence in schools is a top priority. Her plan, which survivors support, includes banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines and requiring universal background checks.

Harris also supports so-called red flag laws, which allow a family member or law enforcement officer to ask a court for an order to temporarily confiscate a gun if there is reason to believe the gun owner may cause harm.

Matt Holden, another survivor who turned 18 last month, said the plans differ from those of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his vice presidential running mate, J.D. Vance, who drew criticism last week after saying school shootings were a “fact of life.”

“I don’t like it. I don’t like admitting it. I don’t like that it’s a fact of life,” the Ohio senator said at a rally in Phoenix. “But if you’re a psychopath and you want to make headlines, you know our schools are easy targets.”

“We need to beef up security so that if some psychopath wants to come in through the front door and kill a bunch of kids, he can’t do it,” Vance added.

At the rally, Vance said tough gun restrictions were not the answer. Similarly, at a National Rifle Association event in May, Trump said he would reverse Biden administration executive orders aimed at reducing gun violence.

In response to a request for comment, the Trump campaign posted statements from relatives of shooting victims who expressed support for the former president. Among them was JT Lewis, whose brother Jesse was killed in the Sandy Hook shooting.

“President Trump created the Federal School Safety Commission and signed the Stop School Violence Act into law,” Lewis said. “He supports toughening up schools and protecting the children of our country. Kamala Harris wants to take the police out of schools and leave our children defenseless. The choice is simple.”

Brown, the Giffords executive director, said gun safety laws are a way to keep school shootings from becoming the norm.

“There’s a ticket in this race that keeps saying it doesn’t have to be this way,” she said.

As first reported by NBC News, Giffords has donated $15 million to support Harris’ campaign, as well as other House candidates who support stricter gun laws.

Since Sandy Hook, states have passed more than 620 gun safety bills, Brown said. In 2022, President Joe Biden passed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the most significant gun safety law in nearly 30 years.

“The momentum is there and the will is there,” Brown said.

Wasilnak and Holden said that when survivors vote for the first time in the fall, they will do so to honor their first-graders who will not have the opportunity to experience this important event, as well as the teachers who gave their lives to make it possible.

“I’m voting for the 26 who can’t,” Wasilnak said.