December 14, 2012, will forever mark a dark day in American history – when a lone gunman opened fire at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, killing 26 victims, 20 of whom were children. 

What You Need To Know

  • It has been almost a decade since the deadly shooting at Newtown, Connecticut's Sandy Hook Elementary School and the United States has seen nearly 1,000 school shootings since

  • One such shooting took place in Texas on Tuesday, when a lone gunman opened fire at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, killing at least 19 children and two adults

  • For many, Tuesday’s shooting evoked memories of their own experiences with mass tragedy and parents of students killed in their classrooms spoke about their childrens’ lives cut short

Sandy Hook remains the deadliest mass shooting at an elementary school in U.S. history. But in the nearly 10 years since the tragedy in Connecticut took place, America has seen nearly 1,000 school shootings – including the 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, which saw 17 students murdered and another 17 injured.

According to data from EdWeek, the U.S. has seen 27 school shootings this year alone. 

One such shooting took place in Texas on Tuesday, when a lone gunman opened fire at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas. At least 19 children and two adults are dead; the 18-year-old gunman was also shot and killed on site. 

For many, Tuesday’s tragedy evoked memories of their own experiences with mass tragedy. Parents of students killed in their classrooms spoke, often in gut-wrenching detail, about their childrens’ lives cut short. Many lambasted politicians for failing to make significant gun reforms in the ten years since Sandy Hook occurred. 

“They f****** failed our kids again, okay? I'm done. I've had it. You know, how many more times?” Frank Guttenberg, whose 14-year-old daughter Jamie was killed in the Parkland shooting, said Tuesday on MSNBC. 

“I am simply going to say this to the families there: You're going to go through pain. It's not right. And it shouldn't be,” he added. “But I am here for you. And others will be here for you. You will be okay. You will find a path forward. But for the next bunch of days and weeks, you have to get through this. This horror. Because people failed.”

Ryan Petty also lost his daughter Alaina in Parkland in 2018. He knows what those parents in Texas are going through.

“Those of us that have experienced this tragedy have been trying to do everything that we can to prevent these things from happening,” Petty said. “If I were there I’d just wrap my arms around them and just share the pain with them.” 

Other Parkland families expressed similar outrage over a lack of action in Washington.

“It’s just absolutely horrible,” said Max Schachter, whose son Alex was murdered in the Parkland shooting, “It’s a failure on all of our parts. It’s a failure of Congress’ part not to act on legislation to make schools safer. And it’s the complacency that’s come over the entire country after COVID.”

"Senate, house of congress, white house, president, vice president, governors, lobbyists, corporations, and civilians that keep ignoring our voices, F*** YOU a thousand times," said Manuel Oliver, whose son, Joaquin, was killed in the shooting on Valentines Day in 2018. "Yes! F*** YOU! You just killed 14 kids!"

"My son Joaquin, my beautiful son Joaquin, my innocent son Joaquin, was shot four times with an AR-15," Oliver said in an interview with CBS News on Tuesday. "And today, we saw an 18-year-old in Texas was able to carry a weapon and kill kids inside their school."

"We've been fighting against this," the frustrated Oliver said. "We were trying to prevent this. We knew that it was going to happen, we just don't know where."

"We believe that more guns are the solution' — you will hear these politicians sending their thoughts and prayers and some of them will say, 'Our hearts are with the families,'" he added. "Well, guess what? The families don't need your freaking hearts. They need their kids. And their kids are not there anymore." 

"We should have fixed it after Columbine," Andrew Pollack, father of Meadow Pollack, wrote on Twitter. "We should have fixed it after Sandy Hook. We should have fixed it after Parkland. I am devastated for the entire community of Uvalde, Texas."

"It’s very painful whenever we see a school shooting, because the loss of even one student at school, it is a tremendously painful to the parents of that child and to the entire community," Tony Montalto, father of Gina Montalto, told local Miami affiliate WSVN.

"Sadly, those of us who founded Stand With Parkland, The National Association of Families For Safe Schools, understand that pain and feel it all too closely," Monalto, the president of Stand With Parkland, continued.

Out of that loss, Parkland parents found a way to make schools safer in Florida. 

“Now we have an armed school safety officer on every K-12 campus," Schachter said. “We have threat assessment teams in every school. Gov. DeSantis just passed the school safety bill. The latest one, we've passed multiple of those, where we now have a mental health coordinator in charge of mental health for the district.”

Nelba Márquez-Greene, whose daughter died in Sandy Hook, similarly offered her support to grieving families in Texas, saying the shooting was the result of a government that failed to take care of its people.

“Teachers. Educators. Rational, loving human beings: I am so damn sorry. Again. We have been failed,” she wrote in a post on social media. “That I have the capability of doing this and delivering this message to you today is a testament to our community of support, my commitment and your prayers. That there is a repeated need for me to do it? That’s a nation’s shame."

NOTE: This article has been updated to reflect the latest death toll figures.