Devastated Sandy Hook parents urge greater gun control

Scarlett Lewis, mother of Sandy Hook victim Jesse Lewis, speaks at a public hearing on gun control. Credit: REUTERS/Carlo Allegri

Parents of the children who lost their lives in the Sandy Hook School massacre were among those pressing for greater US gun controls at a public meeting last night.

Hundreds of people attended the meeting, held by Connecticut's newly created Bipartisan Task Force on Gun Violence Prevention and Children’s Safety, at Newtown High School.

Many in the audience wore stickers urging more gun control measures and some were brought to tears as they listened to the emotional testimonies of the devastated parents who lost their children in the school shootings.

27 people - including 20 children - were killed in the shootings on December 14, last year. Twenty-year-old Adam Lanza killed his mother, attacked Sandy Hook elementary school, before killing himself.

Nicole Hockley and Ian Hockley, parents of of Sandy Hook victim Dylan Hockley, give their testimony. Credit: REUTERS/Carlo Allegri

Among the parents speaking at the meeting was David Wheeler, who lost his son Benjamin in the shootings. He told the meeting that the founding fathers had put the right to bear arms second after the right to live and called for the US to get its "priorities straight":

Read: The victims of the Sandy Hook massacre

Read: American gun violence: 'Trying to contain the uncontainable'

Read: Dylan Hockley's parents speak of their hope for gun control after Sandy Hook