NEWTOWN, Conn. — President Obama will arrive here Sunday to meet family members of those killed in Friday’s shooting rampage, carrying out the awful rituals of mass death and national grief for his fourth time in just four years as president.
The president will meet with the families of the 27 victims of Friday’s shooting, including the 20 small children slain inside their elementary school. Obama will then speak at an interfaith vigil in the evening in Newtown.
Graphic
Newtown school shooting: Remembering the victims
Steve Vogel, Sari Horwitz and David A. Fahrenthold
Medical examiner says victims suffered multiple gunshot wounds and appeared to have died quickly.
Philip Rucker
In a debate once pushed to back burner, Dems pressure Obama to call for stricter limits on weapons.
Sari Horwitz
Bushmaster can quickly fire multiple high-velocity rounds.
Peter Hermann and Michael S. Rosenwald
First victim of rampage collected guns, told landscaper she took son to firing range to practice his aim.
The Washington Post
GRAPHIC | Two of the deadliest massacres happened this year, but 11 others also claimed lives.
Obama made similar visits to Fort Hood, Tex., in 2009, Tucson in 2011 and Aurora, Colo., this July — each time, in the aftermath of a gunman’s spree. Obama has tended to focus on emotion and healing in these moments, touching only lightly on the subject of guns and gun control.
This time, already, some politicians are urging Obama to take a different tone, and cast this fourth tragedy as evidence of a broader problem with U.S. gun laws.
On Sunday morning, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) said this was the moment to bring back an assault weapons ban that expired in 2004. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I) — perhaps the country’s best-known advocate for gun control — said Obama should act while the country’s attention is focused on the damage that an assault weapon can do. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) vowed Sunday to introduce legislation to ban assault weapons at the start of the next Congress.
And Connecticut’s own governor, Dan Malloy (D), told CBS News’s Bob Schieffer that this rampage seemed to prove that his state’s tough gun laws were not tough enough.
“When someone can use an assault weapon to enter a building, actually shoot out that which was preventing him getting in the building, have clips of up to 30 rounds on a weapon that can almost instantaneously fire those, you have to start to question whether assault weapons should be allowed to be distributed the way they are in the United States. You’re right, Connecticut has pretty tough regulations,” Malloy said on “Face the Nation.”
“But obviously they didn’t prevent this woman from acquiring that weapon and obviously allowed the son to come into possession of those and use them in a most disastrous way,” Malloy said.
Those officials spoke on the second morning after the second-worst shooting in U.S. history, as new details illuminated how the unthinkable was done.
The day before, authorities had said that the apparent gunman — 20-year-old Adam Lanza — had no apparent connection to Sandy Hook Elementary School, where 20 students and six staff members died.
It was still a mystery, then, why Lanza — after dressing in black, killing his mother and taking at least three guns from her collection — drove five miles to a school where he was a stranger.
The part of the story that remained grimly, awfully unchanged was what Lanza did when he got there.
Police said that Lanza had forced his way in, by shattering glass at the school’s front. He was carrying a .223-caliber “Bushmaster” rifle, a high-velocity weapon whose slugs were designed to cross a battlefield and still carry enough energy to cause devastating injuries.
The president will meet with the families of the 27 victims of Friday’s shooting, including the 20 small children slain inside their elementary school. Obama will then speak at an interfaith vigil in the evening in Newtown.
Graphic
Newtown school shooting: Remembering the victims
Steve Vogel, Sari Horwitz and David A. Fahrenthold Medical examiner says victims suffered multiple gunshot wounds and appeared to have died quickly.
Philip Rucker In a debate once pushed to back burner, Dems pressure Obama to call for stricter limits on weapons.
Sari Horwitz Bushmaster can quickly fire multiple high-velocity rounds.
Peter Hermann and Michael S. Rosenwald First victim of rampage collected guns, told landscaper she took son to firing range to practice his aim.
The Washington PostGRAPHIC | Two of the deadliest massacres happened this year, but 11 others also claimed lives.
Obama made similar visits to Fort Hood, Tex., in 2009, Tucson in 2011 and Aurora, Colo., this July — each time, in the aftermath of a gunman’s spree. Obama has tended to focus on emotion and healing in these moments, touching only lightly on the subject of guns and gun control.
This time, already, some politicians are urging Obama to take a different tone, and cast this fourth tragedy as evidence of a broader problem with U.S. gun laws.
On Sunday morning, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) said this was the moment to bring back an assault weapons ban that expired in 2004. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I) — perhaps the country’s best-known advocate for gun control — said Obama should act while the country’s attention is focused on the damage that an assault weapon can do. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) vowed Sunday to introduce legislation to ban assault weapons at the start of the next Congress.
And Connecticut’s own governor, Dan Malloy (D), told CBS News’s Bob Schieffer that this rampage seemed to prove that his state’s tough gun laws were not tough enough.
“When someone can use an assault weapon to enter a building, actually shoot out that which was preventing him getting in the building, have clips of up to 30 rounds on a weapon that can almost instantaneously fire those, you have to start to question whether assault weapons should be allowed to be distributed the way they are in the United States. You’re right, Connecticut has pretty tough regulations,” Malloy said on “Face the Nation.”
“But obviously they didn’t prevent this woman from acquiring that weapon and obviously allowed the son to come into possession of those and use them in a most disastrous way,” Malloy said.
Those officials spoke on the second morning after the second-worst shooting in U.S. history, as new details illuminated how the unthinkable was done.
The day before, authorities had said that the apparent gunman — 20-year-old Adam Lanza — had no apparent connection to Sandy Hook Elementary School, where 20 students and six staff members died.
It was still a mystery, then, why Lanza — after dressing in black, killing his mother and taking at least three guns from her collection — drove five miles to a school where he was a stranger.
The part of the story that remained grimly, awfully unchanged was what Lanza did when he got there.
Police said that Lanza had forced his way in, by shattering glass at the school’s front. He was carrying a .223-caliber “Bushmaster” rifle, a high-velocity weapon whose slugs were designed to cross a battlefield and still carry enough energy to cause devastating injuries.