Mass shooting in Sandy Hook village, Newtown, Connecticut.

28 people, including the gunman, were killed in a mass shooting in Sandy Hook village, Newtown, Connecticut. - December 14, 2012

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Police arrive in front of the elementary school after the shooting.

On December 14, 2012, 20-year-old Adam Lanza fatally shot twenty children and six adult staff members in a mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School in the village of Sandy Hook in Newtown, Connecticut. Before driving to the school, Lanza shot and killed his mother Nancy at their Newtown home. As first responders arrived, he committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.

It was the second deadliest mass shooting by a single person in American history, after the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre, and the second deadliest mass murder at a U.S. elementary school, after the 1927 Bath School bombings in Michigan.

The incident prompted renewed debate about gun control in the United States, and a proposal for new legislation banning the sale and manufacture of certain types of semi-automatic firearms and magazines with more than ten rounds of ammunition.

A November 2013 report issued by the Connecticut State Attorney's office concluded that the perpetrator acted alone and planned his actions, but no evidence collected provided any indication as to why he did so, or why he targeted Sandy Hook Elementary School.

As of November 30, 2012, 456 children were enrolled in kindergarten through fourth grade at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The school's security protocol had recently been upgraded, requiring visitors to be individually admitted after visual and identification review by video monitor. Doors to the school were locked at 9:30 am each day, after morning arrivals.

Newtown is located in Fairfield County, Connecticut, about 60 miles (97 km) outside New York City. Violent crime had been rare in the town of 28,000 residents; there was only one homicide in the town in the ten years prior to the school shooting.

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Adam Lanza

Adam Peter Lanza (April 22, 1992 – December 14, 2012) and his mother lived in Sandy Hook, 5 miles (8 km) from the elementary school. He did not have a criminal record. He attended Sandy Hook Elementary School for a brief time. Afterward, he attended St. Rose of Lima Catholic School in Newtown, and then Newtown High School, where he was an honors student. He was taken out of high school at the age of 16, and began attending Western Conneticut State University shortly thereafter. Subsequent to his removal from high school, Lanza was home-schooled by his mother, and earned a GED. Lanza's aunt said his mother removed him from the Newtown public school system because she was unhappy with the school district's plans for her son. He attended Western Connecticut State University in 2008 and 2009.

Students and teachers who knew him in high school described Lanza as "intelligent, but nervous and fidgety". He avoided attracting attention and was uncomfortable socializing. He is not known to have had any close friends in school.

Lanza's brother told law enforcement that Adam was believed to have a personality disorder and was "somewhat autistic". An anonymous law enforcement official and friends of Nancy Lanza reported that Adam had been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome. According to the Hartford Courant and Frontline, Lanza was diagnosed with sensory processing disorder when he was about 6. This disorder does not have official status by the medical community as a formal diagnosis but is frequently one of the characteristics of autism.

Following her divorce from Adam's father, a corporate executive, Nancy Lanza was supported by alimony payments. A relative commented that she did not have to work because the divorce settlement had left her "very well off". Initial reports said that Nancy Lanza had worked as a volunteer at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, but this was denied by the school superintendent on December 15, 2012.

Her sister-in-law described Nancy Lanza as a "gun enthusiast who owned at least a dozen firearms". She often took her two sons to a local shooting range and had them learn to shoot.

Because of concerns that published accounts of Lanza's autism could result in a backlash against others with the condition, autism advocates campaigned to clarify that autism is a brain-related developmental problem and not a mental illness. The predatory aggression demonstrated by Lanza in the shooting is generally not seen in the autistic population.

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Some time before 9:30 a.m. EST on Friday December 14, 2012, Lanza shot and killed his mother Nancy Lanza, aged 52, at their Newtown home. Investigators later found her body clad in pajamas, in her bed, with four gunshot wounds to her head. Lanza then drove to Sandy Hook Elementary School.

At about 9:35 am, using his mother's Bushmaster XM15-E2S rifle, Lanza shot his way through a glass window at the front of the school. He was wearing black clothing, earplugs, an olive green utility vest, and was carrying magazines for the rifle. Initial reports that he had been wearing body armor were incorrect. Some of those present heard initial shots on the school intercom system, which was being used for morning announcements.

Principal Dawn Hochsprung and school psychologist Mary Sherlach were meeting with other faculty members when they heard gunshots. Hochsprung, Sherlach, and lead teacher Natalie Hammond immediately left the room, rushed to the source of the sounds, and encountered and confronted Lanza. A faculty member who was at the meeting said that the three women called out "Shooter! Stay put!" which alerted their colleagues to the danger and saved their lives. Lanza killed both Hochsprung and Sherlach. Hammond was hit first in the leg, and then sustained another gunshot wound. She laid still in the hallway and then, not hearing any more noise, crawled back to the conference room and pressed her body against the door to keep it closed. She was later treated at Danbury Hospital.

A nine-year-old boy has stated that he heard the shooter say: "Put your hands up!", and someone else say "Don't shoot!", as well as people yelling, and many gunshots over the intercom, whilst he, his classmates, and teacher took refuge in a closet in the gymnasium. Diane Day, a school therapist who had been at the faculty meeting with Hochsprung, heard screaming followed by more gunshots. A second teacher, who was a substitute kindergarten teacher, was wounded in the attack. Whilst closing a door further down the hallway, she was hit in the foot with a bullet that ricocheted; Lanza never entered her classroom.

Lanza entered a first-grade classroom where Lauren Rousseau, a substitute teacher, had herded her first grade students to the back of the room and was trying to hide them in a bathroom. Rousseau, behavioral therapist Rachel D'Avino who had been employed for a week at the school to work with a special needs student, and fifteen students in Rousseau's class were all killed. Fourteen of the children were dead at the scene, one injured child was taken to hospital for treatment but was later declared dead. A six-year-old girl was the sole survivor and was found by police in the classroom following the shooting. The girl's family pastor said that she survived the mass shooting by remaining still, and playing dead. When she reached her mother she said: "Mommy, I'm okay, but all my friends are dead." The child described the shooter as 'a very angry man'.

Lanza next went to another first-grade classroom nearby, where there are conflicting reports about the order of events. According to some reports, the classroom's teacher Victoria Leigh Soto had concealed some of the students in a closet or bathroom, and some of the other students were hiding under desks. Soto was walking back to the classroom door to lock it when Lanza entered and killed Soto. Lanza walked to the back of the classroom, saw the children under the desks and shot them. First grader Jesse Lewis shouted at his classmates to run for safety, which several of them did. Lewis was looking directly at Lanza when Lanza fatally shot him. Another account, given by a surviving child's father, said that Soto had moved the children to the back of the classroom and that they were seated on the floor when Lanza entered. According to this account, neither Lanza nor any of the occupants of the classroom spoke. Lanza stared at the people on the floor, pointed the gun at a boy seated there, but did not fire at the boy, who ultimately survived. Instead, Lanza first shot Soto and then a first-grade girl. As Lanza reloaded the gun, according to this account, several of the children ran past him for safety. The children who ran out of the classroom escaped, possibly due to Lanza's rifle jamming, or when he erred in reloading it. Earlier reports said that as Lanza entered her classroom, Soto reportedly told him that the children were in the auditorium. When several of the children came out of their hiding places and tried to run for safety, Lanza fatally shot them. Soto put herself between her students and the shooter, who then fatally shot her. Anne Marie Murphy, a teacher's aide who worked with special-needs students in Soto's classroom, shielded six-year-old Dylan Hockley with her body, trying to protect him from the bullets that killed them both. Soto was found deceased near the north wall of the classroom with a set of keys nearby. Four children were found dead in the classroom; one injured child was taken to the hospital, but was later declared dead. Six surviving children from Soto's class and a school bus driver took refuge at a nearby home. According to the official summary report released by the state's attorney, nine children in all ran from Soto's classroom and survived, while two children were found by police hiding in a bathroom in the classroom. In all, eleven children from Soto's class survived. Five of Soto's students were killed.

School nurse Sally Cox, 60, hid under a desk in her office. She later described seeing the door opening and Lanza's boots and legs facing her desk from approximately 20 feet (6.1 m) away. He remained standing for a few seconds before turning around and leaving. She and the school secretary Barbara Halstead called 9-1-1 and hid in a first-aid supply closet for up to four hours. Custodian Rick Thorne ran through hallways, alerting classrooms.

First grade teacher Kaitlin Roig, aged 29, hid 14 students in a bathroom and barricaded the door, telling them to be completely quiet to remain safe. Lanza is believed to have bypassed her classroom, which was the first classroom on the left side of the hallway, because, following a lockdown drill weeks earlier, Roig failed to remove a piece of black construction paper covering the small window in her classroom door. Lanza may have believed that Roig's classroom was empty because the door was closed and the window was covered.

School library staff Yvonne Cech and Maryann Jacob first hid 18 children in a part of the library the school used for lockdown in practice drills. Discovering that one door would not lock, they had the children crawl into a storage room, where Cech barricaded the door with a filing cabinet.

Music teacher Maryrose Kristopik, 50, barricaded her fourth-graders in a tiny supply closet during the rampage. Lanza arrived moments later, pounding and yelling "Let me in", while the students in Kristopik's class quietly hid inside.[60]

Two third graders, chosen as classroom helpers, were walking down the hallway to the office to deliver the morning attendance sheet as the shooting began. Teacher Abbey Clements pulled both children into her classroom, where they hid.

Laura Feinstein, a reading specialist at the school, gathered two students from outside her classroom and hid with them under desks after they heard gunshots. Feinstein called the school office and tried to call 9–1–1 but could not connect because of lack of reception on her cell phone. She hid with the children for approximately 40 minutes, before law enforcement came to lead them out of the room.

The police heard the final shot at 9:40:03 a.m, and believe that it was Lanza shooting himself in the lower rear portion of his head with the Glock 20SF in classroom 10. Lanza was found wearing a pale green pocket vest over a black polo shirt, over a black T-shirt, black sneakers, black fingerless gloves, black socks, and a black canvas belt. Also found in the vicinity of Lanza was a black boonie styled hat, and thin frame glasses. The Glock was found apparently jammed near the shooter, the Bushmaster was found several feet away from the shooter, and the Sig Sauer P226 was found on the shooter's person.

Authorities determined that Lanza reloaded frequently during the shootings, sometimes firing only fifteen rounds from a thirty-round magazine. He shot all of his victims multiple times, and at least one victim, six-year-old Noah Pozner, 11 times. Most of the shooting took place in two first-grade classrooms near the entrance of the school. The student victims were eight boys and twelve girls, between six and seven years of age, and the six adults were all women who worked at the school. Bullets were also found in at least three cars parked outside the school, leading police to believe that he was firing at a teacher who was standing near a window.

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Flowers for the victims from people of Newtown

Casualties

Killed
Perpetrator's mother
Nancy Lanza (shot at home)

School personnel
Rachel D'Avino, teacher's aide
Dawn Hochsprung, principal
Anne Marie Murphy, teacher's aide
Lauren Rousseau, teacher
Mary Sherlach, school psychologist
Victoria Leigh Soto, teacher

First grade students
Charlotte Bacon
Daniel Barden
Olivia Engel
Josephine Gay
Dylan Hockley
Madeleine Hsu
Catherine Hubbard
Chase Kowalski
Jesse Lewis
Ana Marquez-Greene
James Mattioli
Grace McDonnell
Emilie Parker
Jack Pinto
Noah Pozner
Caroline Previdi
Jessica Rekos
Avielle Richman
Benjamin Wheeler
Allison Wyatt

Perpetrator
Adam Lanza (suicide)

Wounded
Natalie Hammond, lead teacher
One unnamed adult

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Minute of silence observed in the White House on December 21, 2012

In his speech at the December 16 vigil, President Obama called for using "whatever power this office holds", to prevent similar tragedies in the future. Nearly 200,000 people signed a petition at the Obama administration's We the People petitioning website in support of stricter gun control legislation. President Obama later affirmed that he would make gun control a "central issue" at the start of his second term of office, in a speech on December 19; signing 23 executive orders and proposing 12 congressional actions regarding gun control, one month after the shooting. The President formed a Gun Violence Task Force to be led by Vice President Joe Biden to address the causes of gun violence in the United States. Senators Dianne Feinstein and Joe Lieberman called for an assault weapon ban, with Feinstein intending to introduce a ban bill on the first day of the new Congress, while former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot and injured in a 2011 shooting in Tucson, launched Americans for Responsible Solutions to raise money for further gun control efforts in light of the Sandy Hook shooting. Fear of future restrictions on firearms led to a spike in sales of guns, ammunition, and magazines in the weeks following the shooting.

On January 17, 2013, the Utah Sheriffs' Association sent a letter to President Obama criticizing attempts "to demonize firearms". In the letter, they suggested that they would refuse to uphold federal laws that restricted the Second Amendment rights of their constituents.

In reaction to anticipated restrictions on firearms, gun permit applications increased dramatically in a multi-state trend that followed the shooting.

On April 17, a bill that would have seen the restrictions on gun control, known as the Manchin-Toomey Background Checks Bill, failed to pass the U.S. Senate by six votes, with 48 Democrats and 4 Republicans voting for the bill, and 5 Democrats and 41 Republicans voting against. The NRA released a statement critiquing the bill, stating that "expanding background checks, at gun shows or elsewhere, will not reduce violent crime or keep our kids safe in their schools." In a speech the following day, Obama called the failing of the bill "shameful" and stated how the Republicans had "wilfully lied" about the proposal on background checks, while Ted Cruz, a leading opponent of the bill, stated that making a registry is the only way to make the background checks effective.

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The school was closed indefinitely following the shooting, partially because it remained a crime scene. Sandy Hook students returned to classes on January 3, 2013, at Chalk Hill Middle School in nearby Monroe at the town's invitation. Chalk Hill at the time was an unused facility, refurbished after the shooting, with desks and equipment brought in from Sandy Hook Elementary. The Chalk Hill school was temporarily renamed "Sandy Hook". The University of Connecticut created a scholarship for the surviving children of the shootings.

On January 31, the Newtown school board voted unanimously to ask for police officer presence in all of its elementary schools; previously other schools in the district had such protection, but Sandy Hook had not been one of those.

On May 10, a task force of twenty-eight appointed members voted to demolish the existing Sandy Hook Elementary school and have a new school built in its place. The $57 million proposed project was sent to the Newtown Board of Education for approval, to be followed by a public ballot. In October 2013, Newtown residents voted 4,504–558 in favor of the proposed demolition and reconstruction, to be funded by $50 million in state money. Demolition began on October 25, 2013.

On June 5, both houses (Senate and House of Representatives) of the Connecticut state legislature passed a bill modifying the state's Freedom of Information Act in order to "prevent the release of crime-scene photos and video evidence from the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre and other Connecticut homicides, concerned such records would be spread on the Internet." The bill then went on to Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's desk for his signature. The bill creates a new exemption to the state's Freedom of Information Act. The release of photographs, film, video, digital or other visual images depicting a homicide victim is prevented if such records "could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of the personal privacy of the victim or the victim's surviving family members."

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it is really to bad but there was another shooting in Colorado today.

Two students have been wounded during a shooting inside Arapahoe High School in suburban Denver, authorities say. The gunman, who was reportedly armed with a shotgun, then apparently killed himself, police said.

One of the injured students is in critical condition at a nearby hospital, according to a hospital spokesperson. Police said the second injured student is in good condition and could be released from the hospital this evening.


According to law enforcement, the shooter was apparently targeting a particular teacher when one of the injured students confronted the shooter.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by shiva

it is really to bad but there was another shooting in Colorado today.

Two students have been wounded during a shooting inside Arapahoe High School in suburban Denver, authorities say. The gunman, who was reportedly armed with a shotgun, then apparently killed himself, police said.

One of the injured students is in critical condition at a nearby hospital, according to a hospital spokesperson. Police said the second injured student is in good condition and could be released from the hospital this evening.


According to law enforcement, the shooter was apparently targeting a particular teacher when one of the injured students confronted the shooter.

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I like guns but I think something must be done to avoid mentally ill and instable persons to do this kind of things. A recognition system to avoid guns to function on other persons hand and a better system to catch this kind of instabilities on time, I just don't know but a system is needed to avoid them to have an excuse to take the guns from everyone and better sooner than later, lives will be saved and the world would be safer for us all.

An inventor is needed to dedicate some of his time in search for a solution, as we did in our houses or cars. A lot of peoples lives depend on it. Freedom comes with responsibility and is not everyone that can drive a car, to guns the control should be equal or greater.

Sad that innocent people dye because the perpetrators usually don't try to kill armed persons.