Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting



Police at the scene of the shooting

Date: December 14, 2012; 12 years ago; c. 9:35 – c. 9:40 a.m. EST (UTC –05:00)
Target: Students and staff at Sandy Hook Elementary School
Attack type: Mass shooting, murder–suicide, pedicide, matricide, spree shooting, school shooting, mass murder
Weapons: Bushmaster XM15-E2S; Glock 20SF handgun; .22LR Savage Mark II bolt-action rifle
Deaths: 28 (27 at the school, including the perpetrator; and the perpetrator's mother at home)
Injured: 2
Perpetrator: Adam Lanza
Motive: Unknown
Litigation: Wrongful death lawsuit against Remington Arms settled for $73 million

The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a mass shooting that occurred on December 14, 2012, in Newtown, Connecticut, United States, when 20-year-old Adam Lanza shot and killed 26 people. Twenty of the victims were children between six and seven years old, and the other six were adult staff members. Earlier that day, before driving to the school, Lanza fatally shot his mother at their Newtown home. As first responders arrived at the school, Lanza died by suicide, shooting himself in the head.

The incident is the deadliest mass shooting in Connecticut history and the deadliest at an elementary school in U.S. history. The shooting prompted 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 and manufacture of certain types of semi-automatic firearms and magazines which can hold more than ten rounds of ammunition.

A November 2013 report issued by the Connecticut State Attorney's office concluded that Lanza acted alone and planned his actions, but provided no indication why he did so, or why he targeted the school. A report issued by the Office of the Child Advocate in November 2014 said that Lanza had Asperger syndrome and as a teenager had depression, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive disorder, but concluded that they had "neither caused nor led to his murderous acts". The report went on to say, "his severe and deteriorating internalized mental health problems [...] combined with an atypical preoccupation with violence [...] (and) access to deadly weapons [...] proved a recipe for mass murder."

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