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The Sandy Hook Elementary Schoolshooting occurred on December 14, 2012, in Newtown, Connecticut,United States, when 20-year-old Adam Lanza shot and killed 26 people,including 20 children between six and seven years old, and six adultstaff members. Earlier that day, before driving to the school, heshot and killed his mother at their Newtown home. As first respondersarrived at the school, Lanza committed suicide by shooting himself inthe head.
The incident remains the deadliest massshooting at either a primary or secondary school in U.S. history, thesecond-deadliest U.S. school shooting overall, and thefourth-deadliest mass shooting in U.S. History. The shootingprompted renewed debate about gun control in the United States,including proposals to make the background-check system universal,and for new federal and state gun legislation banning the sale andmanufacture of certain types of semi-automatic firearms and magazineswith more than ten rounds of ammunition.
A November 2013 report issued by theConnecticut State Attorney's office concluded that Lanza acted aloneand planned his actions, but provided no indication why he did so, orwhy he targeted the school. A report issued by the Office of theChild Advocate in November 2014 said that Lanza had Asperger syndromeand as a teenager suffered from depression, anxiety andobsessive-compulsive disorder, but concluded that they had "neithercaused nor led to his murderous acts." The report went on tosay, "his severe and deteriorating internalized mental healthproblems ... combined with an atypical preoccupation with violence... (and) access to deadly weapons ... proved a recipe for massmurder".
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Background
As of November 30, 2012, 456 childrenwere enrolled in kindergarten through fourth grade at Sandy HookElementary School. The school's security protocols had recently beenupgraded, requiring visitors to be individually admitted after visualand identification review by video monitor. Doors to the school werelocked at 9:30 a.m. each day, after morning arrivals.
