With the two-year anniversary of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings approaching, troubling new developments threaten to stir up more pain just as the community continues to work toward healing.

Earlier this week the families of 11 of the 20 slain youngsters filed court papers to allow them to file wrongful death claims on the children's behalf. Though the forms filed in Northern Fairfield County Probate Court in Bethel do not list any defendants, The Hartford Courant reported those named in future lawsuits could include the state of Connecticut and the estate of Nancy Lanza, who was shot and killed by her 20-year-old son, Adam Lanza, at their Newtown home on Dec. 14, 2012, before he drove to the elementary school and murdered 20 first-graders and six adult staff members. Mr. Lanza then committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. Another potential defendant is Bushmaster, the North Carolina-based manufacturer of the semiautomatic rifle Mr. Lanza used.

This wasn't the first time litigation stemming from the tragedy has been contemplated. Soon after the attack a New Haven attorney filed a $100 million lawsuit claiming the state failed to protect the students, but he withdrew it a few days later. It is unclear if he is involved in the new groundwork for legal action.

Families have two years to establish their rights to file lawsuits in state court and three years for federal litigation, which means it could be another year before it becomes clear who, if anybody, is suing whom.

This newspaper sympathizes with any parent enduring the death of a child, especially under such brutal circumstances, but though some lawyers disagree we are troubled by the concept of monetizing grief. How can any amount of money possibly comfort those who have lost loved ones? How do you go about assigning blame to a madman's actions?

What about the 10 or so families who don't join the litigation? Will they be pitted against the plaintiffs?

Not all the money has gone into the pockets of victims' relatives. We were pleased to see that some of the $11.4 million in donations raised for a memorial fund was used to build new playgrounds around Connecticut in the young victims' names, including one in New London and another in Mystic. Unfortunately, we were later revolted by some families who squabbled last year over the amount of cash compensation each would receive.

We believe a better way to honor the memories of the victims is to help prevent similar tragedies in the future.

This brings us to a separate reason for concern: efforts by firearms enthusiasts to undo the strict gun-control laws enacted in the wake of the massacre. Last year the Connecticut General Assembly passed and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy signed some of the nation's most forward-thinking legislation banning the types of assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines used by Mr. Lanza.

On Tuesday, gun-rights advocates argued in federal appeals court to overturn these laws, along with, in a separate filing, similar restrictions adopted by New York.

As this newspaper has previously pointed out, the Second Amendment was not designed to protect the rights of individuals to own military-style assault weapons. The court must uphold such reasonable laws and extend them to the federal level because, unfortunately, Sandy Hook was far from an isolated incident.

This week the organization Everytown for Gun Safety released an analysis of the 95 known school shootings that have occurred since Sandy Hook, including instances where a gun was discharged at school but nobody was injured, suicides and attempted suicides. As the Associated Press reported, this averages out to almost one school shooting every week for the last two years, about evenly split between K-12 schools and colleges or universities.

The group found that two-thirds of school shootings in the last two years were fatal or non-fatal assaults, 15 were successful or attempted suicides, 14 were accidental discharges without injury and another six were accidental shootings.

Praise goes to Connecticut representatives who are among those pushing for stricter federal background checks and other controls.

"We are not going to cease fighting until we remove the stain of Congress' inaction," Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said. "When we do nothing we send a bizarre and confounding message of endorsement."