In 2012, Erica Lafferty’s mother, Dawn Hochsprung, was shot and killed along with five other staff members and 20 children at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
Four years later, Lafferty is fighting to preserve her mother’s memory.
Lafferty, 30, has been traveling the country to speak about her experience with gun violence and the importance of expanded background checks for potential firearm purchasers since three months after her mother’s death, in April 2013, when Congress defeated a bipartisan background check measure.
Today, she will protest outside Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte’s national security address in Goffstown at Saint Anselm College with a group of like-minded New Hampshire activists.
Ayotte’s talk is part of the political forum series called Politics & Eggs. At the event, Ayotte plans to outline a comprehensive strategy for defeating the Islamic State and confronting the threat of radical Islamic terrorism.
Lafferty said she is disgusted at how “spineless” politicians like Ayotte can continue to vote against increased background checks that she said would help save lives and reduce gun violence.
“I don’t understand how politicians like Ayotte can live through the Auroras, the Sandy Hooks, the Charlestons, the Orlandos, and just say, ‘Oh, well my thoughts and prayers are with the families,’ and not do anything about it,” she said.
Ayotte most recently voted against a U.S. Senate proposal on June 20 – eight days after the mass shooting in Orlando, Fla., killed 49 – that would expand background checks for sales at gun shows, over the internet and between friends and family members. The senator voted against a similar measure in 2013.
Ayotte did, however, vote in support a two bills that would block the sale of firearms to suspected terrorists on the “no-fly” list a day later, both of which were defeated.
Current law requires background checks only for purchases from federally licensed gun dealers. The last background check reforms were enacted in 2007, when the system was strengthened after that year’s mass shooting at Virginia Tech.
Ayotte is facing Gov. Maggie Hassan in the Senate race in November, where guns will be a major issue.
The senator, who was given an “A” score by the National Rifle Association on her pro-gun rights policies, has said in the past that she aims to focus on fixing the current system instead of creating a new one.
On the Senate floor in June, Ayotte said that Congress’s inability to pass a bipartisan gun regulation bill was reflective of a game of “typical political football.” She advised that her fellow lawmakers should “stop playing political football with something so important.”
“I think we can all agree that we do not want terrorists to purchase firearms,” Ayotte said.
Lafferty said imposing bans on those on the “no-fly list” is a step in the right direction, but it’s not enough. She said she will continue to advocate for gun reform until no one is able to purchase a firearm without first passing a comprehensive background check.
“I know that my mom would continue to fight for me, and it’s the very least that I can do for all the other survivors and family members of victims that I’ve met along the way, and for all of the people who don’t even know that gun violence is going to impact their life.”
NBC News reported in December that at least 555 children under the age of 12 have been shot to death since the Sandy Hook massacre, a rate of about one every other day.
(Leah Willingham can be reached at 369-3305 or lwillingham@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @LeahMWillingham.)