Survivors of the Sandy Hook shooting are set to vote in their very first presidential election come November, a report has revealed.
Grace Fischer, Emma Ehrens, Lilly Wasilnak, and Matt Holden are all 18, and were all in the first grade when the shooting occurred.
Nearly 12 years later, each spoke to NBC News about their plans to vote Vice President Kamala Harris as president.
The interviews come months after the then-graduating teens visited Harris at the White House in June, a weeks before she declared her candidacy.
When asked about their decision, he four who formerly attended Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut cited the candidates stance on gun laws as the main reason.
Pictured, Sandy Hook shooting survivors Emma Ehrens, Grace Fischer, Henry Terifay, and Lilly Wasilnak meeting Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House in June
Several have told NBC News they plant to vote for Harris come November now that they are 18
Its a no-brainer for me, said survivor Wasilnak, 18, after meeting Harris at the White House on National Gun Violence Awareness Day.
Its a huge turning point in our lives, added Fischer, who was just six when 20-year-old Adam Lanza mercilessly gunned down 20 of her fellow classmates and six teachers on December 14, 2012.
She told the station how coming of age at such a monumental moment has given her and others hope that they can spur change, after spending most of their childhoods looking on.
She, like others, survived Lanzas onslaught buy staying quiet in a classroom - as the 20-year-old unloaded an array of guns purchased legally by his mother.
At the time, activists hoped the event would spark legislative changes surrounding gun laws, which since then have stayed up to each state.
Friday, meanwhile, marked 20 years since the a federal ban on assault weapons expired - and Harris, like other Democrats, is campaigning on a renewed countrywide guidance.
The country was forced to look at this issue in a visceral, terrible way, gun safety activist Emma Brown said of the seeds planted by the school shooting, which remains the second deadliest in history behind the one in 2007 at Virginia Tech.
The loss of all of those kids in their classroom was so inconceivable and so horrific that even the politicians and the folks who had been trying to act like this wasnt a growing problem in this country were unable to deny it, she continued.
Its a huge turning point in our lives, said Fischer, who was just six when 20-year-old Adam Lanza mercilessly gunned down 20 of her fellow classmates and six teachers in 2012
Friday, meanwhile, marked 20 years since the a federal ban on assault weapons expired - and Harris, like other Democrats, is campaigning on a renewed countrywide guidance
Their efforts to instill a more widespread ban have fallen flat - a failure the survivors are hoping Harris will set right if she is able to win the Oval Office
Brown is the executive director of Giffords, a gun safety group founded by former Rep. Gabby Giffords, who is also a shooting survivor.
Their efforts to instill a more widespread ban have fallen flat - a failure the survivors are hoping Harris will set right if she is able to win the Oval Office.
Ehrens, who was next to Lanza when he shot her classmates, told the station how she has been left disillusioned by the lack of change since the shooting, worsened by the seemingly endless stream of similar incidents since.
We were told this would be what turns everything around, she said.
It really breaks your heart a little bit more every time.
The group already met Harris when she was VP just before graduation, during which they shared their individual accounts of that day.
Harris, in turn, told them: None of you should have had the experience that you’ve had at all.
The candidate has since said that keeping students safe in schools is a top priority, championing a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, as well as universal background checks.
Shattered tempered glass pieces cover chairs and seats at Sandy Hook Elementary school after the December 2012 shooting
A motive was never determined as to why the gunman, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, massacred 20 first-graders and six educators
I’m casting a vote for the 26 who can’t, one of the survivors said of those who died. Shootings at schools, meanwhile, continue, with two students and two teachers killed at Georgia’s Apalachee High School earlier this month
Since announcing her campaign in July, Harris has also said that she supports laws that would allow a family member or law enforcement to seek a court order to temporarily confiscate guns if they feel the owner could cause harm.
Speculation surrounding such laws was renewed in the wake of Lanzas killing spree, due to the multiple semi-automatics used, and the fact that Lanza was old enough to carry a rifle at the time of the shooting in the eyes of the state.
Lanza, however, ended up using guns bought by his mother kept at their house, after trying to purchase a long gun rifle from a local shop before being turned away do to not wanting to undergo the required 14-day background check.
He would shoot himself in the head as first-responders arrived, putting an end to one of dozens of school shootings in the US over the past few decades - something JD Vance recently said was a fact of life.
This characterization is lost on people like Wasilnak and Holden, who both said it will be in honor of their slain first grade classmates that they would cast ballots for Harris come November,
I’m casting a vote for the 26 who can’t, Wasilnak said of those who died.
Since Sandy Hook, states have passed more than 620 gun safety laws.
Shootings at schools, however, continue, with two students and two teachers killed at Georgia’s Apalachee High School earlier this month, by a 14-year-old toting an AR-style rifle.