Newtown Victims Remembered in Portsmouth

One year after 20 children and six adults were shot and killed by a lone gunman at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., the South Church rang its bells 26 times to remember the victims and raise the issue of gun control.

The bells tolled at 9:35 a.m. when the first victims were believed to have been shot and ended at 9:49 a.m. when the final victim was killed. According to South Church officials, Social justice associate Rich DiPentima rang the bells on the one-year anniversary of the tragedy.

Saturday's remembrance ceremony marked the second time that the city remembered the victims of the shooting. At 10 a.m., South Church officials sponsored a gun control forum that was open to the public.           

The panelists include Hampton state Rep. Elaine Ahearn, who has filed background check legislation; Janet Groat of Moms Demand Action; Judy Stadtman of Projects for a Safer Community; and Rev. Lauren Smith, South Church minister. DiPentima, a former state legislator, will act as moderator.

The forum is being sponsored by the South Church Social Justice Associates. Rev. Smith said she anticipates that all who attend the forum will be respectful of the church space and respectful in their comments.

According to Smith, the forum was a natural extension of the work of the social justice group at South Church, which has made gun control issues a primary focus of its work in the coming months. She said although gun control is not always a comfortable topic for some, the church wants to take a lead on this important issue.

“We may sometimes be tempted to accommodate the unacceptable — to accept the deaths of those 20 children last year as a terrible but random occurrence about which we can do nothing, to accept the tens of thousands of gun-related deaths in our country each year as the sad but necessary by-product of cherished constitutional rights. But we can do better,” she said in a prepared statement.

Smith said when one “digs below the rhetoric,” there is simply a problem to be solved by finding common ground.

“We’ve corrected course in the past as a nation and we can do it again,” she said. “It begins by getting informed.  It begins with productive and civil discourse across difference. We're looking forward to offering our sanctuary for that important conversation.”