7,000 pairs of shoes displayed on U.S. Capitol lawn in memorial to children killed by guns
WASHINGTON—At the edge of a sea of shoes Tuesday morning outside the Capitol, a little girl stood teetering on the balls of her feet.
Eliana Malkoff, 3, wanted to run through the rows of ruby slippers, fuzzy boots, flip flops and sneakers. Her mother told her that this wasn’t a place to play.
The reason these shoes were here, Shawna Malkoff said, was serious.
But like several other parents with young children who visited the sprawling display, Malkoff couldn’t bring herself to explain the reason for it.
About 7,000 pairs of shoes sat on the southeast lawn of the Capitol as a memorial to children slain by guns since the mass shooting in December 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
Avaaz, a global activist network that organizes campaigns involving social issues, solicited donations from around the U.S. to fill the lawn with children’s shoes and send a message to Congress about the toll that gun violence takes.
According to the non-profit Gun Violence Archive, there have been 239 school shootings nationwide since it began tracking the shootings about a year after the Sandy Hook attack. It defines a school shooting as any gunfire on school property when students, faculty or staff are on the site.
The group also says that more than 650 children have been killed or wounded by gunfire this year.
https://www.thestar.com/news/world/...n-in-memorial-to-children-killed-by-guns.html
