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Apparent Suicides by a Sandy Hook Dad and Two Parkland Survivors

A reader is fed up with inaction on gun control as school massacres take a further toll years later.

Jeremy Richman, the father of a Sandy Hook school shooting victim, left, shaking hands with Scott Jackson, the chairman of the Sandy Hook Advisory Commission, in 2014.Credit...Jessica Hill/Associated Press

To the Editor:

Re “Father of Sandy Hook Victim Dies” (news article, March 26):

A father dedicated to helping prevent mass shootings after his daughter was killed in the Sandy Hook massacre has died in an apparent suicide. Jeremy Richman, 49, was the father of 6-year-old Avielle Richman, who was among 20 children and six teachers killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre.

Imagine the daily anguish and torture of the parents of those 20 murdered children. Passing empty bedrooms, some probably still full of the clothes of their slain child. Imagine the depths of misery when birthdays come and go, and when there are empty chairs at family gatherings like Thanksgiving, and the absence of presents under the tree at Christmas.

Then we have two suicides of student survivors of the Parkland shooting to add to the carnage. I’m fed up with “moments of silence” by Congress, the candlelight vigils and masses of flowers. We need a leader and a government like New Zealand’s. Instead, we have a Congress bought and paid for by the National Rifle Association and gun manufacturers, and a citizenship with no power to halt the daily gun killings.

We hear the word “Enough!” uttered so often by so many. The result? Nothing is done.

It’s obvious to me that Mr. Richman couldn’t stand the pain any longer. Let us all hope and pray for no more suicides caused by despair and misery.

Michael Golding
Fort Myers, Fla.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 22 of the New York edition with the headline: A Sandy Hook Father’s Apparent Suicide. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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