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Hundreds of bullets, multiple 30-round clips at Conn. school
A child's message is seen at a memorial for shooting victims, Sunday, Dec. 16, 2012, in Newtown, Conn. A gunman walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown on Friday and opened fire, killing 26 people, including 20 children. / AP Photo/Jason DeCrow
NEWTOWN, Conn. Connecticut state police say multiple 30-round magazines and hundreds of bullets were found at an elementary school where 26 students and staffers were killed.
State Police Lt. Paul Vance also said Sunday that authorities have officially identified the gunman in the school rampage as Adam Lanza. They say his mother, Nancy, was one of his victims.
Who is Adam Lanza?
Unanswered questions from the Sandy Hook tragedy
The gunman shot his mother four times in the head before going to the school, officials said, as details emerged suggesting that Adam Lanza had planned an even more gruesome massacre but was stopped short.
Lanza blasted his way into the building and used a .223 semi-automatic rifle to kill 20 children and six adults, including the principal who tried to stop him, authorities said.
The unthinkable bloodshed might even have been worse. Gov. Dannel Malloy said Lanza shot himself when he heard police coming. He used one of the handguns to kill himself.
The third gun he carried into the school (another semi-automatic pistol) was still in the pocket of his military-style cargo pants when his body was discovered.
The arrival of the first police officers forced Lanza to end his spree earlier than he otherwise might have.
Officials say the presence of a fourth weapon in the trunk of the black Honda Lanza drove to the school - a car which belonged to his mother - suggests he was perhaps thinking of an even broader attack.
"There was a lot of ammo, a lot of clips," State Police Lt. Paul Vance. "Certainly a lot of lives were potentially saved."
The evaluation of ballistics continues, but investigators suspect Lanza never fired the second handgun.
- The brief, enigmatic life of mass-murderer Adam Lanza
- Newtown church evacuated after phone threat
- First funeral set for child killed in Newtown, Conn.
- In wake of school massacre, Conn. authorities warn against social media frauds
- Newtown, Conn. school staffers hailed as heroes
As President Barack Obama prepared a visit and churches opened their doors to comfort a grieving town Sunday, federal agents fanned out to dozens of gun stores and shooting ranges across Connecticut, chasing leads they hoped would cast light on Lanza's life.
Among the questions: Why did his mother, a well-to-do suburban divorcee , keep a cache of high-power weapons in the house? What experience did Lanza have with those guns? And, above all, what set him on a path to go classroom-by-classroom, massacring 6- and 7-year-olds?
Victims of Conn. school shooting
Malloy offered no possible motive for the shooting and a law enforcement official has said police have found no letters or diaries left behind that could shed light on it.
All the victims at the school were shot with the rifle, at least some of them up close, and all were apparently shot more than once, Chief Medical Examiner Dr. H. Wayne Carver said. There were as many as 11 shots on the bodies he examined. Lanza died of a gunshot wound to the head from a 10 mm gun, and the bullet was recovered in a classroom wall, said the same official who described the scene at his mother's house.
All six adults killed at the school were women. Of the 20 children, eight were boys and 12 were girls.
Asked whether the children suffered, Carver said, "If so, not for very long." Asked how many bullets were fired, Carver said, "I'm lucky if I can tell you how many I found."
Parents identified the children through photos to spare them some shock, Carver said.
The terrible details about the last moments of young innocents emerged as authorities released their names and ages — the youngest 6 and 7, the oldest 56. They included Ana Marquez-Greene, a little girl who had just moved to Newtown from Canada; Victoria Soto, a 27-year-old teacher who apparently died while trying to hide her pupils; and principal Dawn Hochsprung, who authorities said lunged at the gunman in an attempt to overtake him.
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You can eliminate guns, knives, cars, explosives, etc. But when it comes down to it, someone in the wrong mind set will find a way to cause damage if that is the way their mind leads them to cope. It should not surprise you as to what an intelligent 20 year old could devise given the wrong mindset, to commit this kind of act.
Everyone has the right to own firearms or not. This is America. This is about the responsiblilty to own firearms, the responsibility to others to keep them safe in given situations, the responsibility to inform others if you think there could be a harmful situation. Maybe a polite simple suggestion to another parent to consider locking their firearms up if you feel that a situation as this could prevent itself. The responsibility to accept this suggestion and follow through to prevent the harm of others. The responsibility to inform to another parent if your child has heard talk or seen signs that this kind of action could take place.
This is possibly lack of responsibility of a gun owner. If there is doubt as to the actions of a child as demonstrated by the news reports, the firearms in the household should have been locked up and the key kept safe.
This may be a random situation but it sounds like the parent knew there was a possibility of some type of improper action. With firearms present this can lead to a bad situation.
These situations are difficult if there is truly a individual with a mental state that is not normal and they can not cope with a situation and this causes improper judgement. Maybe develop programs that can take these highly intelegent individuals and give them a place to interact with others in the same situation. Allow them to have a purpose and a sense of accomplishment. It would be sad to turn our backs on the many families that face these difficulties with their own children.
My heart goes out to the victims, families, and friends. I have been through trying times with my children and fear for my grandchildren in school at this time. I would hate to see harm come to anyones family.
They probably did.
But video game manufacturers could also be the solution.
We need to entice - through compensation - some of them to conspire with educators to deliver educational content that is as interesting as video games.
One of the reasons video games are so successful is simple: They immediately reward success.
You try, you succeed, you are rewarded. You try, you fail, your failure has been anticipated, you are redirected to not repeat your first mistake, you succeed, you are immediately rewarded. If you try again, you fail by making and second (different) mistake, that mistake has also been anticipated, you are redirected, you succeed again, you are again rewarded.
In a video game you never have to "go-back" a "level", once you master it, it's yours. You win it and you move forward. Or, if you have to go back that social demotion is known to you alone....unless you are playing with friends. You don't get sent back a grade (as in school). You just work at your level...until you move upward and onward.
If our educational system was as good at fostering individual progress as the makers of video games, our society would have fewer drop-outs, delinquents, homeless, drug addicts, inmates....and killers.
It is far more likely that he is just a victim of our antiquated educational system.
That system bores bright kids. They become disinterested and restless. They present as uncooperative, even unruly. They act out. They refuse to do repetitive homework because they accurately perceive it to be unnecessary to their understanding.
We than brand them as having a learning problem. They don't. They merely have an educational system problem.
Then we brand them as, sometimes, Aspergers victims - instead of the assets to society they really are.
Then we lose them - to pharmaceutical drugs (or recreational drugs) as we (or they) attempt to medicate their "problem".
Their problem is we do not realize that they are an indictment of the sorry state of education in America today.
What we need is a school system that treats every child as an individual instead of just a member in a class. We need education that is completely individualized - allowing every child to progress in every subject at his/her own rate - be that faster than "average" or more slowly. We need children who master material before being socially promoted into discouragement and bewilderment.
That instruction should be done by computers - whenever possible - where excellent content an be mastered individually. We need teachers who are coaches and use an overarching computer program to monitor individual progress and give encouragement where necessary.
Why do we insist on an educational model - platform instruction - more suited for a one-room school? Why should a teacher be a dispenser of information when a computer would be more efficient (in terms of cost) and more effective (in terms of surety of progress)? Why do we send a teacher into a classroom where she is expected to bring along slow learners and fast learners at an average pace? It is a recipe for failure. And it is failing. Our dropout rate is abysmal.
We do slow learners no good in the current system. They begin to flounder and then fall behind - never able to catch up. We waste their talent.
We do fast learners no good in the current system. They begin to be disinterested, then hard to discipline. We waste their talent.
And the average kids? They are missing much, too.
Why do people think that banning things makes them go away? Did banning alcohol make it go away? How about the ban we have on prostitution? Or gambling? How'd that 55mph speed limit on the national highways work out?
And why do people think that someone who is willing to commit mass murder of children would be slowed down or stopped by gun laws? Adam Lanza wasn't. He stole guns from his mother. He carried concealed weapons illegally, being 20, rather than 21. He brought those guns into an elementary school, which is illegal, and he murdered children who had never done anything to deserve it.
How much more evidence do you need that criminals and crazy people don't obey gun laws?
So why do we blame the gun? The gun is a politically correct scapegoat for our failings as a people.
We do have people that have access to guns that should not have access to guns. Trying to control the gun will be like trying to eridicate fire ants - there are too many of them and they are distributed to far into our society. Yet we will try to control the impossible.
We do have a culture that has embraced violence in both movies and video games and glorified it. Why are we then surprised that mass killers like the Batman Movie killer in Col, this nut case in Conn, the Gabby Giffords shooter in Ariz are all younger more impressionable adults?
Surprised at this no. Shocked by the violence and the choice of targets Adam Lansa chose to express his rage on yes. There must be something in his past that caused him to pick this outlet for his rage.
This is a people issue - an education issue- and a how do we provide a means to identify and provide help to those people in our society who need it issue.
It should also be a wakeup call to movie producers and video game makers - who need to be regulated same as guns, cigarettes, alcohol and drugs as for the amount of violence their product contains. The military uses similar products to desensatize personnel entering combat - these same movies and games are similar in nature and need regulated.
One of the most hopeful signs of this terrible event is the number of people that have turned to God and the outpouring of all religions and faiths. We are a nation that believes in God - maybe we should further examine why when we do not have a horrible event like this - that we try to remove God from our lives.
Playing devil's advocate here- No person has ever been shot where a gun wasn't present.
Sorry, I'm not anti-gun, but your first statement was so ignorantly stated that I couldn't get past it without replying.
Oh, and rkj98765...while it's true people kill people, not guns, semi-automatic military style weapons, aka assault weapons, should not be available to the general public regardless. They are for war and should only be used by the military and possibly some levels of law enforcement. A lot of things are not legal for civilians to use, and that is clearly one of them that shouldn't be.
One more thing...regulated militia - rkj and the mother of the Connecticut shooter clearly aren't "regulated militia". Time to reinstate the assault rifle ban. While other things need to be done as well, this one is a no brainer.
An off-the-shelf Bushmaster 223 is not an assault weapon. It may *look* intimidating, but there are .22 rifles (the same kind we plink cans with) that look intimidating, too. In fact, under federal law that very same .22 can become an "assault" weapon if the criteria are met.
All of this to say - the assault rifle ban would not have made the 223 used in CT illegal.
Your point is right, but you've actually understated the data. 270 million firearms in the US; 9000 firearm homicides annually. Assuming each is committed by a unique firearm (just to give the benefit of the doubt to the anti-gunners), that's 3 1/000ths of 1% of all firearms are used for homicide each year. Which means that 99.997% are not. And since assault rifles are almost non-existent among firearm fatalities (almost all are committed with handguns), the percentage of assault rifles used for homicide...well, you probably don't have enough zeros on your calculator to figure out the percentage.
But banning assault rifles is easier than looking at harder issues that make Left-wingers uncomfortable, like:
* Abortion, the legalization of which has cheapened human life in the US since 1973.
* Divorce, the vast majority of which is unnecessary, and destroys children's psyches while they are in their formative stages.
* The elimination of institutional mental health care, in favor of societal integration, which has produced legions of homeless people, as well as guys like Adam Lanza.
These are the products of the Left Wing. And they must look in the mirror--just as Right-Wing pro gunners must--and re-evaluate where we are as a society and what they've done to put us here.
Oh, and rkj98765...while it's true people kill people, not guns, semi-automatic military style weapons, aka assault weapons, should not be available to the general public regardless. They are for war and should only be used by the military and possibly some levels of law enforcement. A lot of things are not legal for civilians to use, and that is clearly one of them that shouldn't be.
One more thing...regulated militia - rkj and the mother of the Connecticut shooter clearly aren't "regulated militia". Time to reinstate the assault rifle ban. While other things need to be done as well, this one is a no brainer.