A time for mourning — the first anniversary of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre — is developing into a call to arms for the gun owners.
The Second Amendment Foundation announced Thursday that it is proclaiming Dec. 14 as Guns Saves Lives Day and is planning events in all 50 states to counteract what it characterized as anti-gun propaganda that exploits the tragedy.
“Our intent is not to allow our opponents to try to own that day,” Alan Gottlieb, the group’s president, told Hearst Connecticut Newspapers Thursday. “We assumed that they would try to use that date to try to push their gun prohibition agenda.”
Gottlieb said the logistics of the national campaign are still being hashed out and couldn’t say whether there would be an event in Newtown, which is expected to be overrun with national media and politicians for the somber anniversary.
Twenty children ages 7 and under and six female educators were killed when a heavily armed gunman forced his way into Sandy Hook Elementary School and sprayed the building with bullets before turning a gun on himself.
“No one at Newtown should have been a victim,” Gottlieb said, “and no one in the future should be victimized by laws that do not allow people to defend themselves.”
Gottlieb supports allowing teachers to arm themselves in the classroom.
“On a voluntary basis, we think it’s great,” he told the newspaper. “Obviously, guns save lives.”
Newtown is also the home of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, which Gottlieb said has partnered with his group in the past on the distribution of gun locks and sponsored conferences put on by the Second Amendment Foundation. His organization is based in Bellevue, Wash.
On Connecticut’s crackdown on guns in the wake of the shooting, Gottlieb said lawmakers should have focused their efforts in keeping firearms out of the hands of the mentally ill and criminals instead.
“So I think it was totally misdirected and punishes people who don’t misuse firearms,” said Gottlieb, a regular guest on cable news programs such as “The O’Reilly Factor.”
In contrast to a nationwide demonstration by Second Amendment activists in August known as Starbucks Appreciation Day, when gun owners carried their weapons to coffee franchises, including one in Newtown, Gottlieb said organizers of Guns Save Lives Day will not use the same approach.
“Personally, I think it was kind of insensitive myself,” he said. “It was counterproductive. I don’t think pushing firearms in public streets helps my cause a whole lot.”