The gunman who killed 20 children and six adults at a Connecticut elementary school fired 154 rounds in less than 5 minutes, selecting high capacity magazines from a home arsenal stocked with swords, knives and a cache of guns, officials said.
Investigators also found a newspaper clipping about a mass shooting in the home that Adam Lanza shared with his mother, along with a gun safe in his bedroom, receipts from shooting ranges and National Rifle Association (NRA) certificates for both of them, according to court papers released on Thursday.
To carry out the second-deadliest school shooting in US history, Lanza used 30-round magazines at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy said after the previously sealed searches of Lanza’s car and home were made public.
As more details about the shooting came to light, US President Barack Obama urged lawmakers not to forget those shot to death in Newtown three months ago.
The Dec. 14 rampage started at the Lanza family home, where authorities say the 20-year-old shot dead his mother, Nancy Lanza, and then drove to the school he once attended.
Armed with an AR-15-type assault rifle and two handguns, he killed the 20 children, six staff members and himself.
Searches of the house by police turned up a cache of guns, three samurai-style swords and boxes of bullets, along with items that could offer some clues on Adam Lanza’s thinking.
Among them were a 2008 New York Times clipping on an Illinois school shooting and books on Asperger’s syndrome and autism. Friends of the Lanza family had described Adam Lanza as having Asperger’s syndrome, which is a form of autism.
The attack, which Obama called the worst day of his presidency, reignited a fierce debate on gun violence and gun regulation in the US.
The Second Amendment of the US Constitution protects the right to gun ownership.
The NRA called after the shooting for armed guards to patrol public schools, while gun-control advocates called for tighter restrictions on both the process to buy guns and the types of guns and ammunition clips that may be sold.
The court papers said police searching the Lanza home found an Enfield bolt-action rifle, a Savage Mark II rifle, a revolver, three samurai-style swords with blades measuring up to 71cm and a 208cm wood-handled pole with a blade on one side and a spear on the other.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
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Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia