Gun violence in America: Kids and guns

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Hannah Jack, who’s 19, calls this the new normal. “That was life at that point it didn’t even dawn on me that it would be any different.”

Jack was in 5th grade in Watertown, Connecticut, when the Sandy Hook shooting happened. “I could see the pain in their face and how scared they were when the alarms went off and it scared me too, you know?”

John Woodrow Cox, the author of "Children Under Fire: an American Crisis," estimates that during a single school year, 4 to 8 million kids experience lockdowns. He says even false alarms are leaving their mark.

“You know, we should be able to figure it out,” he said. “And I think that's what their hope is. Not that they want, you know, their children to be poster children, but maybe to prevent another family from going through what they had to experience.”

Soto says, on the bad days, he goes to his daughter's playground. “They ask me, ‘Carlos, how can you do it?’ I say it’s not easy, but it’s not hard. And I sit there watching the kids play, and enjoying it, and that gives me more relief. And it gives me peace.”

This story is part of the series Gun Violence in America by ABC News Radio. Each day this week we’re exploring a different topic, from what we mean when we say “gun violence” – it’s not just mass shootings – to what can be done about it.