12 girls, 8 boys: Slain kids were 6, 7
Twelve girls, eight boys. One celebrated her seventh birthday just four days before her death. Dressed in “cute kid stuff”, all 20 died when heavily-armed Adam Lanza, 20, forced his way into their school, Sandy Hook Elem-entary, and shot them and six women in one of the worst US shooting massacres.
“They were first-grad-ers,” said Dr H. Wayne Carver, Connecti-cut’s chief medical examiner, before releasing the names of all victims.
Newtown’s residents po-ured into churches Sunday to pray for the 20 children and seven adults, and US President Barack Obama was due in town for an inter-faith vigil.
The probe entered an important new stage with the autopsy of Lanza, who is believed to have shot himself inside the school, which might start lifting the lid on the Lanza mystery. Lanza was seen as a withdrawn and awkward youngster, but he had shown no indications that he might perpetrate a massacre. Initial reports suggested Lanza used two handguns in his spree, but officials said Saturday his main weapon was .223 caliber Bushmaster, a civilian version of the US military’s M4.
Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, a longtime gun-control advocate, told NBC-TV she would introduce a bill on the first day of the new Congress in January seeking to ban assault weapons. Calls for a federal ban will not get far without support from Mr Obama. When asked if the President would support her measure, Sen. Feinstein said: “I believe he will.”
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