Sandy Hook Promise releases shocking PSA — with a point

A new back-to-school PSA released by the nonprofit gun violence prevention group Sandy Hook Promise on Wednesday is hard to watch, but there is a point.

School shootings are preventable, if enough people are educated about the signs.

The video starts like a typical back-to-school commercial, with students cheerily showing off recent purchases like binders and headphones, explaining how the items will help them stay organized and learn during the new school year. Then, it takes a dark turn.

In the background, students run as the boy who introduced the headphones puts them back on. A school shooting is presumably in process. Kids use their school supplies to demonstrate how useful they could be during a shooting, like scissors to ward off an attacker. One particularly graphic scene shows a child applying a tourniquet with a sock to a classmate's bleeding leg.

It ends with an even more heartbreaking scene — a girl locked in a bathroom stall, with tears streaming down her face, texts "I love you mom." She then says in a shaky voice, "And I finally got my own phone to stay in touch with my mom." Then the door opens ominously and the girl closes her eyes to brace herself for what is next.