‘Remembering America’s Gun Victims’: Daniel Barden (Sandy Hook, Connecticut)

‘Remembering America’s Gun Victims’: Daniel Barden (Sandy Hook, Connecticut)

Daniel Barden was fearless in his pursuit of happiness and life.

He was a budding athlete, a member of the swim team and an avid soccer player.

And he had earned his ripped jeans and two missing front teeth, his parents said.

“Words really cannot express what a special boy Daniel was. Such a light,” Mark and Jackie Barden wrote, recalling their son.

“Always smiling, unfailingly polite, incredibly affectionate, fair and so thoughtful towards others, imaginative in play, both intelligent and articulate in conversation: in all, a constant source of laughter and joy.”

Seven-year-old Daniel was in his grade one class at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Connecticut, on December 14, 2012 when a gunman broke in and shot and killed him and 19 other children and six adults at the place.

Since Daniel’s death, Mark Barden has become co-founder and CEO of the Sandy Hook Promise Action Fund (SHPAF), which is dedicated to sparing families the pain of losing children to gun violence.

His 20-year-old daughter Natalie — who was 10 when her brother’s life was taken — has also turned into an advocate against gun violence. She and other young people fighting gun violence shared their thoughts with President Joe Biden at a forum in October 2022.

“As I saw more and more families shattered by gun violence, I made the difficult decision to start speaking out and joined a gun violence prevention club at school,” Natalie said in a post made in memory of her brother Daniel on the SHPAF site. “I forced myself to get even more involved, caring less about the pain it would cause me. I felt like if I didn’t, then more people were going to die.”

* Adapted from The Wall Street Journal’s tribute for Sandy Hook victims and Natalie Barden’s tribute to her brother Daniel on the Sandy Hook Promise Action Fund site.

Comments

No comments yet. Why don’t you start the discussion?

Add Your Thoughts