STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Group of Newtown residents met Sunday and Monday
- A few decided to drive to Washington and meet with Brady Campaign members
- More than 40 families of people killed by guns spoke at a Tuesday morning presser
(CNN) -- As the capital building came into view Tuesday morning, Lee Shull tried to help his neighbor Po Murray navigate their car into Washington.
He's a 43-year-old software consultant. She's a mother of four. A week ago, they lived in a town and a neighborhood they thought was safe.
Now their block in Sandy Hook set off by caution tape. Inside the house 100 yards from Murray's front door, Nancy Lanza was found in her bed on Friday, a gunshot to her face. The killer, her 20-year-old son Adam Lanza, took three of his mother's high-powered guns to Sandy Hook Elementary and murdered 20 first-graders and six adults.
"I cannot even tell you what that feels like to have that happen in your town. It was like we were grabbing for something, anything," said Shull. On Friday night, neighbors and friends starting calling each other.
"We all thought we have to do something," he said. "That turned into, 'What are you doing Saturday? Can we get people together Saturday?'
About 50 people got together Saturday, then Sunday and again Monday at the town's public library, the only place that could accommodate the growing 75-plus crowd.
They decided to call themselves Newtown United. A Facebook and Twitter account were set up. Then they scrambled to find someone in the group who could drop their jobs for a day or put off family obligations to go to Washington. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, which holds perhaps the biggest pro-gun control megaphone in the country, was staging a press conference at the capital.
At the presser, more than 40 relatives of people who have been victims of gun violence spoke.
"I am here today wearing my son's shoes," said Tom Mauser whose son Daniel was killed in the 1999 Columbine High school shooting. He was wearing a pair of sneakers.
"It's amazing we have the same size shoes so I wear them because he was a member of the debate team at Columbine High School, so I now wear his shoes in this great debate and it's a debate we need to have in this country," Mauser said, referring to a discussion on gun control.
Others spoke -- relatives of those shot to death in Aurora, Colorado, at a movie theater in July and some related to victims of the 2007 Virginia Tech slayings.
"These people are here before you because they refuse to be statistics," Mauser said. "They want to be the stories of ordinary Americans who have been through hell and back and they don't want it to happen to the rest of you."
Organizers with the Brady campaign said there is a "disconnect" between what the American public wants -- a safer country -- and what elected officials are doing.
"It's more than a hope," David Cicilline, D-Rhode Island, "We are confident that this tragedy that happened in Newtown, Connecticut, is going to shine such a stark spotlight on that disconnect that as is starting to happen our elected officials are going to do the right thing and they are going to join the conversation."
Bill Toomey, who is part of Newtown United, told CNN earlier Tuesday that it feels "so visceral and raw in our town right now," he said.
Toomey, who works in nature conservancy, said members of the group realize that they likely will have a long and difficult road ahead advocating for a change that others have been time and money trying to achieve.
"Meeting with the people with the Brady campaign will help us understand what has to be done and how to do it," he told CNN early Tuesday. "We just have to do something."
Newtown residents unite on gun control
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Newtown residents unite on gun control
