A decade after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School that claimed the lives of 20 children and six educators, a woman close to the tragedy is reflecting on her own experiences following the massacre in Texas Tuesday.
Erica Lafferty said it's a hole she's been trying to fill for over a decade.
Her mother Dawn Hochsprung was the principal of Sandy Hook when she was gunned down in the school's hallway in December 2012.
Lafferty said thoughts and prayers didn't bring her mother back then, and they won't bring back the 19 children and two teachers murdered at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.
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"Honestly, how many?" Lafferty said that was her first reaction when she heard about the Texas school shooting.
"As soon as I found out, I told work that I was gonna take the day. I needed to just step back and process as best I can and that lasted all of 10 minutes before I heard her voice in my head like 'get off your butt kid.'"
Lafferty said she believes gun violence in many aspects is a multifaceted issue, whether it's mass shootings, domestic violence, or hate crimes.
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While Connecticut is known to have some of the strictest gun laws in the nation, she believes more needs to be done on the federal level for the entire country.
"We all thought that Sandy Hook was going to be the turning point for our country. To have 26 people murdered in hallways and classrooms and bathrooms and Congress couldn't act. We had another big moment after Parkland. We thought that could be enough. I hope that this is when enough is enough," she said.
She has advice for those who have lost loved ones to gun violence, including those mourning the lives lost in the massacre that rocked Uvalde, Texas on Tuesday.
"Take the help. Write things down because your brain is not going to remember anything and you're going to wonder how you picked the flowers that you picked or what shoes your loved one was buried in. Write things down. You're gonna wanna remember and you're gonna spend a lot of time trying to piece things together to make it make sense even though it never will," she said.
Erica encourages people to text the word 'ACT' to 66433.
That will get them connected to 'Moms Demand Action, a grassroots group fighting for public safety measures that can protect people from gun violence.
