text: Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period. ||||| This story was originally published on Dec. 2. To mark the fourth anniversary of the Sandy Hook school shooting, it is being republished. 
   
   Sandy Hook Promise, an organization devoted to protecting children from gun violence that was launched in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, has issued a powerful public service announcement urging people to look for warning signs of potential shooters. 
   
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   In the Dec. 2 PSA, part of the organization’s “Know the Signs” campaign, viewers are introduced to Evan, a typical teenager, trying to find summer love as the school year winds down. We see Evan scratch “I am bored” into a desk in his school’s library, and he returns the next day to find a response from a female student. 
   
   Evan and the mystery girl scratch flirtatious messages back and forth, and Evan tries to find out who his secret pen pal is. On the final day of school, as yearbooks are being passed around for signatures, Evan’s chat partner recognizes his handwriting and reveals herself. But while she does, an ominous figure emerges through a door in the background, drops a large duffel bag, and cocks an assault rifle. 
   
   Viewers are then shown a shortened version of the same PSA: The message is that while viewers were distracted by Evan’s romance, they neglected the warning signs of a male student in the background who reads gun-enthusiast magazines, searches for gun videos on YouTube, and is bullied in the school’s halls. Towards the end of the PSA, viewers see the male student make a menacing gesture towards his teacher after receiving a poor test grade. 
   
   Text appears in the ad: “While you were watching Evan, another student was showing signs of planning a shooting. But no one noticed.” 
   
   The ad says, “Gun violence is preventable when you know the signs.” 
   
   “The PSA demonstrates how easy it is for one to overlook the signs of an at-risk individual demonstrating signs of violence, particularly gun violence, and that when one knows the signs, it can be prevented,” says a statement from Sandy Hook Promise. 
   
   The organization hopes the PSA will teach people how to recognize someone exhibiting at-risk behaviors and empower them to intervene. 
   
   Sandy Hook Promise states that 80 percent of school shooters and 70 percent of individuals who killed themselves told someone of their violent plans prior to taking action — yet nobody intervened. ||||| What Would You Do: Mother Uses Harsh Punishments on Son | What Would You Do? | WWYD 
   
   - Duration: 7:22. 
   
   What Would You Do? 
   
   22,198,732 views ||||| The onset of this PSA from Sandy Hook Promise, an organization created in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, begins innocently enough. The video follows a boy, Evan (the same name as the video), exchanging messages on a desk in the school library with an unknown classmate. 
   
   The flirtatious messages are sent back and forth until the end of the school year, leaving a dissuaded Evan without a chance to learn the identity of his secret crush. However, in a last-ditch effort to learn who the person is, he exchanges yearbook signatures with classmates — one of which recognizes his handwriting from the desk. 
   
   While the two begin talking, however, an ominous figure emerges from the entrance of the building, taking out an assault rifle and cocks the gun as the screen fades to black. 
   
   "While you were watching Evan, another student was showing signs of planning a shooting," the corresponding text reads. "But no one noticed." 
   
   The PSA then relays the scenes of Evan at school, and in the background are several alarming signs of another student looking at gun videos on YouTube, being bullied by classmates, sharing photos with a gun on Instagram and reading a gun enthusiast magazine. 
   
   Giphy The warning signs 
   
   "It's important to know that one warning sign on its own does not mean a person is planning an act of violence," the Sandy Hook Promise website reads under the "Know the Signs" program. "But when many connected or cumulative signs are observed over a period of time, it could mean that the person is heading down a pathway towards violence or self-harm. By knowing the signs, you have the power to intervene and get help for that person. Your actions can save lives." 
   
   The organization was founded by several family members whose children were killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting in 2012. The nonprofit's goal is to protect children from gun violence. 
   
   Watch the powerful PSA from Sandy Hook Promise below: ||||| Sandy Hook Promise is a national non-profit organization founded and led by several family members whose loved ones were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14, 2012. 
   
   Based in Newtown, Connecticut, our intent is to honor all victims of gun violence by turning our tragedy into a moment of transformation by providing programs and practices that protect children and prevent the senseless, tragic loss of life.
target: – Meet Evan. He's a bored high school kid who starts defacing school property, er, doodling on a table in the library one day. Someone writes back. Messages are swapped as days pass, mystery and romance bloom. Evan wanders the halls, eyeing his classmates, wondering who his mystery penpal is, and as AdWeek puts it, "there ensues a back-and-forth that's pretty captivating. Perhaps too captivating." (To avoid spoilers, stop reading and watch the video.) The end result has been described as "jarring" (Kansas City Star), "chilling" (Mic), and "powerful" (People). While you and Evan are busy being captivated—especially as Evan meets his mystery penpal—one of Evan's classmates is lurking in the background providing warning signs that he's planning a shooting, which in fact interrupts that very meeting we've been waiting for. The ad comes courtesy of Sandy Hook Promise, run by family of the victims of the school shooting in Newtown, Conn. "When you don't know what to look for, or can't recognize what you are seeing, it can be easy to miss warning signs or dismiss them as unimportant," says Nicole Hockley, whose 6-year-old son, Dylan, died in the massacre. The organization, which says 80% of shooters tell someone what they're planning, aims to shine a light on the need to watch for those signs. (In Utah, a teen's own parents disarmed him inside a school.)