Oral

The Sandy Hook School massacre; an involved mother and an on site police chief remember and reflect, and debate with academics and the APHA audience the way forward. Purpose To describe the immediate response, contemporary thoughts and subsequent reflections of two involved individuals to the Sandy Hook School Massacre and to debate with academics and the APHA audience implications for gun control Methods The presenters are respectively; a Sandy Hook mother whose son survived the shooting and who is currently an MPH student, the police chief who amongst other things supervised the surviving Sandy Hook children’s reunion with parents, and academics focused on violence reduction and epidemiological criminology Outcomes The political process to reconcile the stated Presidential ambition for limited gun control measures with powerful opposed vested interest and political opposition is likely to be long and drawn out. There is a real danger that during that process society will loose sight of the effects of current liberal gun policy. The purpose of this session is to provide a platform for immediately involved witnesses, to interweave their testimony with that of evidence experts and to facilitate a lively debate on what should happen next. Conclusion Unless we remind ourselves of how it felt on the morning of December 14th 2012 and take time to reflect on those memories and think constructively and calmly about alternative ways of organizing society, we loose the opportunity to hold policy makers and politicians to account in their deliberations over gun control.

Session Objectives: Describe and compare the contemporaneous thoughts on the Newtown School shooting of; a Sandy Hook mother, the Police Chief that led on family reunification and violence reduction academics. Explain and discuss the speaker’s respective views on what should happen as a result of this tragedy. Formulate their professional response to such incidents