Sharon Brous and Jacqui J. Lewis

Opinion contributors

One of the great travesties of the gun violence culture in America is that after a mass shooting, once the news cycle moves on, it is those whose lives have been shattered, the survivors and victims’ family and friends, who are left to lead the fight to prevent future gun atrocities.

The standard-bearers for turning tragedy into transformation are the families who lost loved ones at Sandy Hook Elementary School, who have repeatedly emerged as voices of moral courage and clarity. Together, they created Sandy Hook Promise (SHP), dedicated to preventing gun violence and doing whatever they can to awaken the nation to the insanity of our gun addiction and the real toll it takes on real people, including too many real children.

Their new public service announcement is penetrating and unforgiving. It will make you profoundly uncomfortable — and it should. By mocking the ubiquitous back-to-school ads that characterize this time of year, they show the real face of gun violence in a country that last year had 110 school shootings, with 61 deaths. Think of that: Dozens of children who went to school to learn did not make it home at the end of the day. More than 228,000 students in the United States have lived through gun violence at school since Columbine in 1999.

School supplies as literal lifesavers

The PSA is a heart-stopping twist on this “new normal,” where common back-to-school items, like new shoes, pencils and skateboards, become life-saving tools during a school shooting. It closes with a young girl crouched in a closet, weeping and trembling as she texts “I love you mom” into her new bedazzled phone, the shooter’s footsteps ominously approaching.

It’s brutal. But it’s not gratuitous. Their message: We must not accept that gun violence in our schools is simply inevitable. “Preventing school shootings and violence is the real ‘Back-to-School Essential’,” says Nicole Hockley, co-founder and managing director of SHP, whose 6-year-old son, Dylan, was killed in the 2012 massacre.

SHP has trained 7.5 million people from Los Angeles to Miami-Dade County in its Know the Signs program, which has successfully averted multiple planned school shootings, teen suicides and other types of violence afflicting students across the country. These efforts have saved lives.

A depraved moral calculcus

Of course, it’s not only our schools under fire. Guns are used in murders, assaults, gender-based violence, unintentional shootings and suicide. The problem is rural and urban. Gun violence happens at home (living in a home with guns raises the risk of homicide by 40% to 170% and the risk of suicide by 90% to 460%). It happens at the mall, in the movie theater, at church and in synagogue.

Gun violence in America is a public health crisis.

Watch the PSA. It is vital that we — and our children — know the signs. That would go a long way in stopping many types of gun injuries and deaths, especially suicides, which are at epidemic proportions among teens. And at the same time, let’s not dare pretend that it’s the responsibility of our children, or their teachers, to keep themselves safe from gun violence.

A doctor's view:Gun violence is a health crisis, not a political football. It's time to act.

After the Sandy Hook massacre, the whole world witnessed the National Rifle Association and its congressional allies manipulate the massacre into a commitment to loosen gun laws. They laid blame on mental illness, video games, broken families — everywhere but on the AR-15 and magazines used to murder those kids and teachers. They claimed that protecting gun ownership is more inviolate than protecting human life — a depraved moral calculus.

We need an assault weapons ban

You need a license to drive a car and get married. It’s long past time for a federal gun licensing program that would require not only comprehensive universal background checks but also that all guns be sold through licensed dealers. The Senate Background Checks Expansion Act, introduced back in January, sits stalled because Republican leadership refuses to bring it to the floor for a vote. No matter our political affiliation, we must all insist this bill move through the process immediately.

Assault weapons and high-capacity magazines serve no purpose other than to kill as many people as possible as quickly as possible. They must be banned. Gun manufacturers must be held accountable for injuries resulting from use of firearms, just like automakers, tobacco companies and manufacturers of other consumer products made in the United States. And we need federal funding to support community-based violence intervention programs, like Operation Ceasefire in Oakland, California.

These actions will make all of us, and our children, safer.

Odessa:Mass shooting debunks argument against universal background checks

We are faith leaders, driven by the often difficult work of manifesting the divine dream in the midst of the violent realities all around us. We see the toll that gun violence takes on our communities, the sense of fear that pervades our streets and our institutions. We’re tired — we have been fighting this battle for decades already. But we will never abandon the brave families of the victims and the survivors, to do this work alone. We stand together so that no child ever has to hide in a supply closet, texting home “I love you mom.”

Share the Sandy Hook PSA.

Rabbi Sharon Brous is senior and founding rabbi of IKAR in Los Angeles. The Rev. Dr. Jacqui J. Lewis is Senior Minister of Middle Collegiate Church in New York City. They are senior fellows at Auburn Seminary. Follow them on Twitter: @SharonBrous and @RevJacquiLewis