Cross the Housatonic River and head into Newtown, Connecticut, you’ll drive past a quaint cafe and boutique and come across a little white house, surrounded by showy, blue hydrangeas.
Inside the house is a photograph of the cutest little boy. Wild hair, curious eyes, beautiful, beautiful smile. Tooth missing.
That’s Daniel Barden.
For his dad, Mark Barden, it’s as if the moment happened yesterday.
“So I was giving a guitar lesson, and there was a little knock on the door, and Daniel comes in, holding his hand over his mouth,” Barden said. “‘Excuse me, I'm sorry to bother you, but can you keep this for me, for the tooth fairy?’ And he spits a bloody little tooth into my hand.
“It was very typical of Daniel. He was very sweet and very polite. But he was also full into life.”
In 2012, Daniel had just turned 7 when he and 19 other children, along with six educators, were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School. More than a hundred bullets were fired in less than five minutes — an act of violence that shook the nation.
The following year, a group of grieving parents created Sandy Hook Promise in this little white house – to prevent school gun violence.
Sandy Hook Promise is expanding its efforts with bipartisan support, even in a contentious election year. Its Know the Signs pilot program aimed at preventing school gun violence and addressing the underlying mental health crisis is scaling up nationally.
Many see the Second Amendment as a political lightning rod. Barden, a co-founder of Sandy Hook Promise, explains why his group is able to make progress at a time when so many people are so divided on issues like immigration and reproductive rights.
“Nothing that we do results in taking away somebody's rights to own a firearm, everything we do is consistent with responsible gun acquisition, storage, use and ownership,” Barden said.
Sandy Hook Promise helped pass legislation under President Obama to address mental health; an act to prevent school violence under President Trump; and under President Biden, an act to prevent suicide.
Barden says firearm safety and mental health transcend politics.
“We have lots and lots of support from folks who identify as gun-owning conservatives in red states, who are completely aligned with our mission,” he said.
Programs help children be ‘upstanders’
That mission is to protect children from gun violence by teaching them to know the signs leading up to it.
Those signs may come in the form of a social media post, a comment made to someone on the school bus, or even social isolation. That’s why Sandy Hook Promise developed its Know the Signs programs with input from experts.
“Sixteen school shootings were averted due to students trained in our Know the Signs programs, and over 600 suicides did not happen,” Barden said.
The program is now expanding nationally in Atlanta and New York City — including CIS303, a middle school in the Bronx that’s participating in the pilot initiative.
“In our neighborhood, it's especially ingrained that you don't say anything, right? You don't mind other people's business. You don't tattletale on people. And Sandy Hook really gave us the language of being an upstander,” says Monica Brady, the middle school principal.
Brady said that the pilot doesn’t focus on getting in “other people’s business.”
“It's that you're your friends safe from harm,” she said. “It’s not something new that we've said to kids, but to say it in a consistent way, to have a buzzword that really signals to kids exactly what we mean by that. That's the money.”
Barden’s next goal is to encourage lawmakers to pass the Plan for School Safety Act. The proposed federal bill has bipartisan support from U.S. Rep. Jahana Hayes, a Connecticut Democrat, and U.S. Rep. John Rutherford, a Florida Republican, both of whom are co-sponsors.
Rutherford said he introduced the safety act to connect experts with school leaders to help them participate in school safety programs and grants.
“As a former sheriff and a lifelong member of law enforcement, I know firsthand the importance of investing in security to prevent violence before it occurs,” he said.
Gun violence as a public health crisis
The legislation comes as U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy made headlines in June when he declared gun violence a public health crisis. Barden applauds Murthy’s declaration and hopes it leads to more research funding and public awareness.
“The United States is clearly suffering an off-the-charts gun violence and shooting epidemic unlike any other civilized nation, and so we need to treat this as the public health epidemic that it is,” Barden said.
Gun violence devastates families.
More than a decade after his son was killed at Sandy Hook Elementary, there are days when Mark Barden collapses in a heap.
Now devoted to Sandy Hook Promise full-time, Barden is on a race to prevent other children from dying like Daniel — a boy known for his kindness, smile like sunshine, and his love for all living things.
