Clinton emphasized action to stop daily gun crimes, as well as mass shootings, at roundtable held near Sandy Hook elementary school in Connecticut

Seated one hour from the school where 20 children and six staff members were massacred a little more than three years ago, Hillary Clinton struck an emotional, reflective and urgent tone in appealing to voters to rally against the scourge of gun violence ripping America apart at the seams.

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It was the second consecutive day in which Clinton had turned the spotlight on guns, a centerpiece of her campaign that gained prominence last year as the election cycle coincided with a series of high-profile shootings – from a church in Charleston, South Carolina, to a movie theater in Lafayette, Louisiana, and the killing of two reporters while live on air in Roanoke, Virginia.

But while it is mass shootings such as the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, that often draw the most focus, in nearby Hartford on Thursday Clinton sought to emphasize the stories of the roughly 90 people a day killed by gun violence in the US.

“That is 33,000 people a year. A year,” Clinton said. “If anything else were killing 33,000 Americans a year, you can bet we would be fully mobilized doing everything we possibly could to save lives.

“It is just too easy for people to reach for a gun to solve their problems. It makes no sense.”

If anything else were killing 33,000 Americans a year, you can bet we would be fully mobilized doing everything we could Hillary Clinton

Seated upon a stage at the Wilson-Gray YMCA in Hartford, the panelists who joined Clinton invoked the rising homicide rate in Connecticut’s capital city and surrounding areas. Like many cities nationwide, law enforcement in Hartford have reported an increase in violent crimes – many of which are firearm-related.

“The reality is that I’m the minority here – mass shootings are the minority,” said Erica Smegielski, the daughter of slain Sandy Hook principal Dawn Hochsprung. “What we need to focus on is the everyday gun violence that plagues our cities and plagues our streets and plagues our towns.”

Iran Nazario, the director of community outreach at the Compass Youth Collaborative, shared the story of how he left behind a life on the streets only to lose his brother in a gang-related shooting.

Clinton, reflecting on the need to create opportunities for youth, noted the amount of money spent at both the state and federal level to deal with the consequences of young individuals lacking incentives.

“Joining a gang is like having a family. It’s feeling like you’re part of something bigger than yourself,” Clinton said.

“So we’re either going to have gangs that murder and rob and do the things that are so destructive to the gang members and to the community, or we’re going to have positive gangs, we’re going to have positive alternatives for young people.”

Jane Albro, a former US census worker attending the Hartford event, stood up to tell Clinton that she was the only candidate who could deliver on gun law reform because she was the only one with a strong enough political network.

“She knows the whole Washington machine, and she is just going to be incredible,” Albro told the Guardian after the event. “I think that she is grassroots.”

Robin Casella returned to chat with Albro after moving up front to join the Clinton meet-and-greet line at the end of the event.

“The fact that I just got to shake her hand – I’ve been hoping and praying she would run for president since she was first lady,” Casella said. “What an honor to be part of the movement for such a brilliant mind.”

Clinton has routinely highlighted the intersection of gun violence and criminal justice, particularly its disproportionate impact on minorities. On Wednesday, she visited the St Paul’s Baptist church in Philadelphia with former US attorney general Eric Holder and a group of African American women who lost their children to gun violence known as the “Mothers of the Movement”.

“We all have implicit biases,” Clinton told the largely black audience. “What we need to do is be more honest about that and surface them because today, most people believe that they don’t have those biases.”

Connecticut and Pennsylvania are among five states that will hold their primaries on Tuesday. Clinton, who scored a decisive victory over Bernie Sanders in New York this week, currently leads in both states.

Both Albro and Casella predicted a strong performance by Clinton in the state next week. “It’s going to be a landslide in Connecticut,” Albro said.

Gun control has served as a key point of contrast for Clinton in her race against Sanders, who has often cited low rates of gun violence in his rural state of Vermont as a reason why he has in the past opposed certain stricter gun laws. Although Sanders voted for universal background checks after the Sandy Hook shooting, he also supported a bill that granted legal immunity to gun manufacturers.

Sanders has since reversed his position, but at the same time drew the ire of Connecticut Democrats this month when he told the New York Daily News that families of gun violence victims should not be able to sue gunmakers. His comments came as some of the family members who lost loved ones in Newtown moved forward in their pursuit of legal action against the manufacturer, distributor and seller of the AR-15 assault rifle used by the gunman behind the Sandy Hook massacre.

Clinton did not mention Sanders by name at Thursday’s roundtable but referenced his position on the gun immunity issue. She has a longstanding record of backing stricter gun laws and unveiled a comprehensive plan to reduce gun violence last year that included a ban on assault weapons, expanding background checks, reversing the legal immunity for gunmakers and closing loopholes on waiting periods for purchasing firearms.

Reflecting on what made her so passionate about the issue, Clinton said it was “the accumulation over now about 25 years of being in too many rooms with too many people who have lost someone they loved to gun violence”.

“It just doesn’t make sense to me. I find it absolutely indefensible,” she said, while urging those in the room: “We have to turn this into a voting issue.”

Additional reporting by Lauren Gambino in Philadelphia