27 Children shot and killed at Connecticut school: report

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==== Second way forward Congress should push for mandatory gun insurance 17 December 2012 | By Robert Cyran, Reynolds Holding Print Email Share Comment Save . Congress should push for mandatory gun insurance. Firearm ownership is a U.S. constitutional right. But as last week’s massacre again demonstrated, it comes at a cost. Requiring liability coverage could be one way to keep the most dangerous weapons from unstable hands without infringing the law. The biggest legal obstacle to gun regulation is the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment. The right to bear arms has generally trumped strict limits on ownership, especially since the Supreme Court’s 2008 decision extended the right to individuals. Imposing a hefty insurance policy could make owning a firearm prohibitively expensive for some and create constitutional problems. But tying the price of coverage to the cost of gun incidents could work. And there’s a strong argument that damage caused by firearms gives the government a “compelling interest” to require insurance, the test for infringing a constitutional right. There’s already a precedent: the National Rifle Association offers liability insurance to members. Moreover, the market should be efficient at weighing the risks. Insurers specialize in figuring out the odds of something going wrong and charging the appropriate amount. Car insurance premiums are based on both the driver and the vehicle. A 19-year-old man with a Porsche and a history of moving violations pays far more than a 40-year-old minivan driver with a clean record. So a shotgun owner who has hunted for years without incident could be charged far less than a first-time owner purchasing a semi-automatic. In other words, people would be financially discouraged from purchasing the most risky firearms and encouraged to attend gun safety classes and use trigger locks. And the insurance could provide some restitution for those hurt by guns. There are drawbacks, of course. Insurance would probably only cover the owner, not the gun, so could be useless in incidents where the gun has been stolen. And those looking to get guns off the streets fast would be disappointed: it would take some time for the discouraging effects of high insurance premiums to trickle down. Tying insurance to ammunition sales as well could make such a policy more effective more quickly. Either way, liability coverage could be one way to bring the two sides of the gun control debate together. ====== Search for answers begins after Connecticut school massacre Sat, Dec 15 02:46 AM EST 1 of 24 By Hilary Russ and Dave Gregorio NEWTOWN, Connecticut (Reuters) - Twenty schoolchildren were slaughtered by a heavily armed gunman who opened fire at a suburban elementary school in Connecticut on Friday, ultimately killing at least 27 people including himself in the one of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history. The 20-year-old gunman, identified by law enforcement sources as Adam Lanza, fired what witnesses described as dozens of shots in Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, which serves children from ages 5 to 10. Lanza attended the school himself as a youngster. Authorities found 18 children and seven adults, including the gunman, dead at the school, and two children were pronounced dead later after being taken to a hospital. Another adult was found dead at a related crime scene in Newtown, bringing the toll to 28, state police Lieutenant Paul Vance said. Police would not confirm or deny media reports that the person was Lanza's mother, Nancy. As reports of the shooting spread, panicked parents rushed to the school searching for their children as students covered in blood were being carried out of the building. President Barack Obama, wiping away tears and pausing to collect his emotions in an address to the nation, mourned the "beautiful little kids between the ages of 5 and 10 years old" who were killed. "Our hearts are broken today, for the parents, and grandparents, sisters and brothers of these little children and for the families of the adults who were lost," Obama said, his voice cracking. Hundreds of Newtown residents gathered to mourn on Friday night at St. Rose of Lima, the Catholic church just a couple of miles (km) from the school. "(The) important thing is that we're here for the families, and it won't be just tonight. It will be as long as is necessary for them to grieve, for them to come out of their grievance and come back to normal, although I don't see how you can actually come back to normal after something like this," said Kenneth Adams, 81, as he entered the church with his wife, Amelia. Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy and Richard Blumenthal, a U.S. senator from the state, spoke at the service, although the crowd appeared most moved by Monsignor Robert Weiss, who had spent the day at a firehouse consoling victims' families. "Life has changed forever in Newtown," Weiss said. "We have 20 new saints today. We have 20 beautiful angels." The holiday season tragedy was the second shooting rampage in the United States this week and the latest in a series of mass killings this year, and was certain to revive a debate about U.S. gun laws. SHY, INTELLIGENT Two former classmates recalled Lanza as a shy and unusually intelligent student. In Newtown High School, he dressed more formally than other students, often wearing khaki pants, button-down shirts and at times, a pocket protector, said Tim Arnone who first met Lanza at Sandy Hook Elementary. The two of them joined the high school's audio-visual club, also known as a tech club, and spent free periods playing video games at the school's television station studio. "It was definitely the nerdiest club in the school, Arnone, 20, told Reuters. He said Lanza was "driven hard" to succeed academically by his parents, particularly his mother. "She pushed him really hard to be smarter and work harder in school," Arnone said. State police refused to confirm any details about the Lanzas, saying they hoped to have more information on Saturday. The New York Times reported Lanza used a Sig Sauer and a Glock, both handguns, and said police also found at the scene a Bushmaster .223 M4 carbine, a rifle, that they believe belonged to him. His brother, Ryan Lanza, was "either in custody or being questioned," a law enforcement source said. DOZENS OF SHOTS The chaos struck as children gathered in their classrooms for morning sessions at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, a wealthy, wooded suburb of 27,000 in Fairfield County, about 80 miles northeast of New York City. A state police spokesman said the shootings took place in two rooms, which the Hartford Courant described as first-grade classrooms. Witnesses reported hearing dozens of shots; some said as many as 100 rounds. Melissa Murphy, who lives near the school, monitored events on a police scanner. "I kept hearing them call for the mass casualty kit and scream, ‘Send everybody! Send everybody!'" she said. "It doesn't seem like it can be really happening. I feel like I'm in shock." A girl described to NBC Connecticut hearing seven loud "booms" while she was in gym class. Other children began crying and teachers moved the students to an office, she said. "A police officer came in and told us to run outside and so we did," the unidentified girl said on camera. Images from the scene showed children being led away in single file, each child's hands clutching the shoulders of the one in front. Police wearing body armor and carrying rifles swarmed the scene and locked down the school. NBC News reported that police finally began removing the children's bodies from the school late on Friday, more than 12 hours after the shootings, and that parents were being called in to identify them. 'MEANINGFUL ACTION' Obama ordered flags flown at half-staff at U.S. public buildings. "As a country, we have been through this too many times," Obama said, ticking off a list of recent shootings. "We're going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics," Obama said in apparent reference to the influence of the National Rifle Association over members of Congress. Obama remains committed to trying to renew a ban on assault weapons, White House spokesman Jay Carney said. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, founder of the advocacy group Mayors Against Illegal Guns, said it was "almost impossible to believe that a mass shooting in a kindergarten class could happen. "We need immediate action. We have heard all the rhetoric before. What we have not seen is leadership - not from the White House and not from Congress," he said. "That must end today." Outside the White House gates, about 200 people rallied on a cold evening in favor of gun restrictions. The toll in Newtown exceeded that of one of the most notorious U.S. school shootings, the 1999 rampage at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, where two teenagers killed 13 students and staff before killing themselves. The United States has seen a number of shooting rampages this year, most recently in Oregon, where a gunman killed two people and then himself at a shopping mall on Tuesday. The deadliest came in July at a midnight screening of a Batman film in Colorado that killed 12 people and wounded 58. In 2007, 32 people were killed at Virginia Tech university in the deadliest act of criminal gun violence in U.S. history. (Additional reporting by Rob Cox, Dan Burns, Chris Kaufman, Edith Honan, Chris Francescani, Peter Rudegeair, Ellen Wulfhorst and Erin Geiger Smith; Writing by Daniel Trotta, Jim Loney and Ben Berkowitz; Editing by Peter Cooney) ========= Connecticut gun rampage: 28 dead, including 20 schoolchildren Fri, Dec 14 20:48 PM EST 1 of 24 By Dan Burns and Chris Kaufman NEWTOWN, Connecticut (Reuters) - Twenty schoolchildren were slaughtered by a heavily armed gunman who opened fire at a suburban elementary school in Connecticut on Friday, killing at least 27 people including himself in the one of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history. The 20-year-old gunman, who law enforcement sources identified as Adam Lanza, fired what witnesses described as dozens of shots at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, which serves children from ages 5 to 10. Authorities found 18 children and seven adults, including the gunman, dead at the school, and two children were pronounced dead later after being taken to a hospital. Another adult was found dead at a related crime scene in Newtown, bringing the toll to 28, state police Lieutenant Paul Vance said. As reports of the shooting spread, panicked parents rushed to the school searching for their children as students covered in blood were being carried out of the building. President Barack Obama, wiping away tears and pausing to collect his emotions in an address to the nation, mourned the "beautiful little kids between the ages of 5 and 10 years old" who were killed. "Our hearts are broken today, for the parents, and grandparents, sisters and brothers of these little children and for the families of the adults who were lost," Obama said, his voice cracking. "Our hearts are broken for the parents of the survivors as well, for as blessed as they are to have their children home tonight, they know that their children's innocence has been torn away from them too early and there are no words that will ease their pain," said Obama, who has two young daughters. "Evil visited this community today," Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy told reporters. The New York Times reported that the gunman walked into a classroom where his mother was a teacher, shot his mother and then 20 students, most in the same classroom, before shooting five other adults and killing himself. One other person was shot at the school and survived, the Times said. Other media reports said the gunman's mother was found dead at a house nearby. Adam Lanza's brother, Ryan Lanza, was "either in custody or being questioned," a law enforcement source said. The gunman was dead inside the school, Vance said. The Times reported he used a Sig Sauer and a Glock, both handguns, and said police also found at the scene a Bushmaster .223 M4 carbine, a rifle, that they believe belonged to him. The holiday season tragedy was the second shooting rampage in the United States this week and the latest in a series of mass killings this year, and was certain to revive a debate about U.S. gun laws. POLICE, PARENTS SWARM SCHOOL Chaos struck as children gathered in their classrooms for morning meetings at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, a wealthy, wooded suburb of 27,000 in Fairfield County, about 80 miles northeast of New York City. Images from the scene showed children being led away in single file, each child's hands clutching the shoulders of the one in front. Police wearing body armor and carrying rifles swarmed the scene and locked down the school. Distraught parents converged, frantically searching for their daughters and sons. Neighbors and friends wandered in shock, looking for information. "We can't believe this," said Kinga Walsh, 47, a mother of four who was Christmas shopping when she heard there had been a shooting at the school. "Newtown is a quiet, nice place. It's a small, tight-knit community." Nearly 12 hours later, the bodies of the dead children, adults and gunman remained in the school awaiting identification. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^> Obama ordered flags flown at half-staff at U.S. public buildings. "As a country, we have been through this too many times," Obama said, ticking off a list of recent shootings. "We're going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics," Obama said in apparent reference to the influence of the National Rifle Association over members of Congress. Obama remains committed to trying to renew a ban on assault weapons, White House spokesman Jay Carney said. The Connecticut shootings appear certain to trigger renewed debate over U.S. gun laws. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, founder of the advocacy group Mayors Against Illegal Guns, said it was "almost impossible to believe that a mass shooting in a kindergarten class could happen. "We need immediate action. We have heard all the rhetoric before. What we have not seen is leadership - not from the White House and not from Congress," he said. "That must end today." Outside the White House gates, about 200 people rallied on a cold evening in favor of gun restrictions. French President Francois Hollande, in an open letter to Obama, said he was "horrified" by the shootings. British Prime Minister David Cameron said, "It is heartbreaking to think of those who have had their children robbed from them at such a young age, when they had so much life ahead of them." U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expressed his condolences and called the targeting of children "heinous and unthinkable." BLOODIED CHILDREN LEAVE SCHOOL Vance said the shootings took place in two rooms of Sandy Hook Elementary. Witnesses reported hearing dozens of shots; some said as many as 100 rounds. "It was horrendous," said parent Brenda Lebinski, who rushed to the school where her daughter is in the third grade. "Everyone was in hysterics - parents, students. There were kids coming out of the school bloodied." Lebinski said a mother who was at the school during the shooting told her a "masked man" entered the principal's office and may have shot the principal. Melissa Murphy, who lives near the school, monitored events on a police scanner. "I kept hearing them call for the mass casualty kit and scream, ‘Send everybody! Send everybody!'" she said. "It doesn't seem like it can be really happening. I feel like I'm in shock." The toll exceeded that of one of the most notorious U.S. school shootings, the 1999 rampage at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, where two teenagers killed 13 students and staff before killing themselves. A girl described to NBC Connecticut hearing seven loud "booms" while she was in gym class. Other children began crying and teachers moved the students to an office, she said. "A police officer came in and told us to run outside and so we did," the unidentified girl said on camera. The United States has seen a number of shooting rampages this year, most recently in Oregon, where a gunman killed two people and then himself at a shopping mall on Tuesday. The deadliest came in July at a midnight screening of a Batman film in Colorado that killed 12 people and wounded 58. In 2007, 32 people were killed at Virginia Tech university in the deadliest act of criminal gun violence in U.S. history. (Additional reporting by Hilary Russ, Edith Honan, Chris Francescani, Peter Rudegeair, Ellen Wulfhorst, David Gregorio and Erin Geiger Smith; Writing by Daniel Trotta and Jim Loney; Editing by Peter Cooney) ============= Fri, Dec 14 12:49 PM EST 1 of 2 By Chris Kaufman NEWTOWN, Connecticut (Reuters) - At least 27 people, including children, were killed on Friday when at least one shooter opened fire at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, CBS News reported, citing unnamed officials. The shooter, the father of a student there, was also killed, CBS News reported. The principal and school psychologist were among the dead, CNN said. There were unconfirmed reports of a second shooter after witnesses reported hearing dozens of shots fired. Sandy Hook Elementary School teaches children from kindergarten through fourth grade - roughly ages 5 to 10. "It was horrendous," said parent Brenda Lebinski, who rushed to the school where her daughter is in the third grade. "Everyone was in hysterics - parents, students. There were kids coming out of the school bloodied. I don't know if they were shot, but they were bloodied." Television images showed police and ambulances at the scene, and parents rushing toward the school. Parents were seen reuniting with their children and taking them home. (Additional reporting by Dan Burns, Chris Francescani and Paul Thomasch; Editing by Daniel Trotta and Jackie Frank) =========== 'Another day, another horrific shooting': Tragic timeline of the worst US massacres Get short URL email story to a friendprint version Published: 15 December, 2012, 02:25 TAGS: Arms, Children, USA The families of victims grieve near Sandy Hook Elementary School, where a gunman opened fire on school children and staff in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14, 2012 (Reuters / Adrees Latif) A bloody massacre inside of a Newtown, Connecticut elementary school Friday morning has entered the record books as one of the worst mass shootings in the history of the United States. Authorities say a gunman murdered more than two dozen people, mostly children, inside Sandy Hook Elementary School early Friday. In all, state police say at least 27 people, including the shooter, died as a result of the gunfire. The shooter’s mother, Sandy Hook kindergarten teacher Nancy Lanza, has been confirmed by the authorities as one of six adults killed during the rampage that claimed the lives of 20 children. Friday afternoon, State Police Lieutenant J. Paul Vance announced that one adult was also found deceased at a secondary crime scene, bringing the total number of fatalities to 28 by midday. Compared with statistics for similar incidents, the Newtown rampage has become the second-deadliest school shooting in US history and one of the worst crimes of its kind the country has ever seen. Sadly, it is not an isolated incident. Friday’s massacre in Newtown is but a single example of what the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence says happens all too regularly. According to the organization, the United States has seen around 20 mass shootings every year since 2005. “Another day, another horrific shooting eating away at our collective peace of mind,” Brady President Dan Gross wrote on the group’s Facebook on Friday. “We are better than this this. What matters is not what we do after the sensational tragedies. It's what we do between them – to make the voice of the American public heard.” Aurora, Colorado, July 20, 2012 Suspect James Holmes opened fire during an opening-night screening of The Dark Night Rises, killing 12 people and injuring dozens of others in what US President Barack Obama called a “horrific and tragic” event. Tucson, Arizona, January 8, 2011 A schizophrenic person killed six people and injured more than a dozen others, including a congressional lawmaker, outside of a supermarket. Jared Lee Loughner has been sentenced to life in prison for an act that almost killed Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) Fort Hood, Texas, November 5, 2009 U.S. Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan is alleged to have killed 13 people after he went on a shooting spree at the busy US military base in the Lone Star State. He faces dozens of charges and could be sentenced to death if convicted during a court-martial. Virginia Tech, April 16, 2007 Still the most deadly school shooting in US history: Student Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people using a Glock 19 and a Walther P22 firearm before committing suicide. Friday’s massacre in Connecticut is the second-worst in US history behind Virginia Tech. Littleton, Colorado, April 20, 1999: Students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 12 classmates and then themselves inside of Columbine High School. Until Virginia Tech nearly a decade later, it was the worst school shooting in the country’s history aside from the notorious 1966 massacre waged from University of Texas clock tower. ===================== 7 Unhinged Right-Wing Responses to Connecticut Massacre Before the official count of the dead in the Sandy Hook massacre was released, right-wingers bitterly promoted their guns and religion as the solution. December 16, 2012 | This article has been updated. Before the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School took place, two things were predictable: •that another mass killing was inevitable, given the increase in their frequency over the past year, and the fact that no measures had been taken to prevent them •that right-wingers would see in such a dreadful event an opportunity to promote their paranoid vision of a perfect America as one where every citizen is armed to the teeth, and trembling in awe of their vengeful God The bodies of the 27 people -- most of them children between the ages of six and seven -- killed by Adam Lanza on Friday, December 14, had yet to be returned to their families when the right-wing noise machine went into gear, blaming public education and a purported dearth of firearms for the tragedy. Yet, even as right-wing pundits continued to name gun control as a reason that the killer took so many lives, producers at NBC's Meet the Press were unable to get a single pro-gun senator to appear on the show the Sunday after the tragedy. All 31 gun-loving senators who will have seats in the new Congress were invited, according to executive producer Betsy Fischer Martin. Here we offer seven examples of the stunning lack of compassion and twisted logic expressed by right-wing leaders in response to a slaughter of children by the son of a gun enthusiast. 1. Ann Coulter: Everybody should carry a concealed firearm. The killings took place in the morning, and by 11:07 a.m., Ann Coulter, the publicity seeker whose big, bad mouth gives the little black dress a bad name, was touting concealed-carry laws as the answer to America's massacre problem. Coulter's first tweet on the subject came so soon after the killings, that there was no definitive count yet of the number of people who had perished: Ann Coulter@AnnCoulter Only one policy has ever been shown to deter mass murder: concealed-carry laws. - bit.ly/VGDNBo 15 Dec 12 Well, that seemed to do the trick for a woman who never found a tragedy she couldn't exploit, for by 11:30, she tweeted this: Ann Coulter@AnnCoulter I'm on Hannity radio today, talking about the 1 public policy that provably reduces the incidence of, and deaths from, mass shootings. 15 Dec 12 And that, boys and girls, is how to work the Twitter machine for self-promotion on the backs of slaughtered children. It's not the first time that Coulter has expressed her love for guns in the wake of murder. At a Florida church in 2007, I heard Coulter describe the assassination of doctors who performed abortions as "a procedure with a rifle performed on them." [h/t The New Civil Rights Movement] 2. Mike Huckabee: Massacre the result of church-state separation. Apparently, former Arkansas governor and pastor Mike Huckabee thinks that if only the Constitution had been rewritten to allow for the mandatory worship of his God in public schools, the massacre would not have happened. It's unclear from Huckabee's remarks, made on the Fox News Channel's Your World show (Huckabee also has his own show on the cable channel), whether he was saying that if only killer Adam Lanza had gotten religion during his public school education, he wouldn't have killed, or if Huckabee was suggesting that God was punishing a public school for not allowing organized worship in the classroom. "We ask why there is violence in our schools but we have systematically removed God from our schools," Huckabee told host Neil Cavuto. "Should we be so surprised that schools would become a place of carnage?" Media Matters has the clip. 3. Bryan Fischer: God let massacre happen in public school because he's not wanted there. The noxious radio-show host and spokesperson for the anti-gay hate group known as the American Family Association, put the blame for the massacre squarely on the Supreme Court, which outlawed organized public school prayer in 1962, as seen in this clip captured by Right Wing Watch. "I think God would say to us, 'Hey, I'd be glad to protect your children, but you've got to invite me back into your world first,'" Fischer told his listeners. "'I'm not gonna go where I'm not wanted; I am a gentleman.'" Fischer continued in his imagined voice of God. So much of a gentleman is Fischer's God that the Almighty would await an invitation before rushing in to protect 20 children from being gunned down. Thank goodness the police and firefighters who responded were so terribly rude. 4. Steve Deace: Killings caused by widespread child-murder by parents and a school assignment in France. The right-wing radio talker took to his Facebook page the day of the shootings to attribute them to a "culture of death" for which he used, as evidence, deceptively packaged examples, including "asking kids to write suicide notes in schools" and "allowing and subsidizing parents killing 4,000 of their own children each day." I Googled "suicide note school assignment" and found one example -- in France. Since Deace had published a blog post about the French story on his Web site, it's safe to assume that's what he was referencing, and it's difficult to see the impact that would have had on a killer who attended school in Connectict. For Deace's assertion of 4,000 killings of children by their parents per day, we could find no evidence. The radio personality also claimed that children are taught that "there is no God, and thus their lives have no real purpose." Right Wing Watch has the report. 5. Glenn Beck: Killings caused by soul problems. Taking to his Twitter stream, Glenn Beck was quick to tweet, at 12:24 p.m.: "Our communities are suffering and it is because of the ever expanding lack of self control & personal responsibility." Tweeter Val Farrelly replied: "It's nothing to do with self control and everything to do with a lack of gun control." Another Beck gem about the shootings: Glenn Beck✔ @glennbeck It is not the gun. It is the soul. 15 Dec 12 6. Larry Pratt: Making schools gun-free zones caused the problem. The executive director of Gun Owners of America, a far-right group allied with the militia movement, makes a leap of logic by claiming that because the massacre happened in an school designated as a "gun-free zone," that the absence of guns in Sandy Hook Elementary School must have caused the problem. Despite the fact that Pratt once addressed a group of white supremacists and advocated for the creation of militias in the U.S. based on the model of anti-communist Guatemalan death squads, the USA Today Web site gave Pratt a big megaphone to its millions of unique viewers (23 million in May 2011, according to the company's media kit), the day after the Sandy Hook tragedy, in the opinion section of the site. There, Pratt asserts: Hopefully, the Connecticut tragedy will be the tipping point after which a rising chorus of Americans will demand elimination of the gun-free zone laws that are in fact criminal-safe zones. One measure of insanity is repeating the same failure time after time, hoping that the next time the failure will turn out to be a success. Gun-free zones are a lethal insanity. As AlterNet reported in 2010, Pratt told a rally of gun owners at the Washington Monument that the Oklahoma City bombing was but a battle in a war between the citizens and the government. (He cited the assault on David Koresh's compound by federal law enforcement in Waco, Texas, as evidence of a purported war on citizens by the government. As we reported in April 2010, Pratt continued his rally speech, saying: We're in a war. The other side knows they're at war, because they started it. They're comin' for our freedom, for our money, for our kids, for our property. They're comin' for everything because they're a bunch of socialists. Shame on USA Today for publishing Pratt as some kind of expert. Guess they couldn't find a Ku Klux Klan official. 7. Louie Gohmert: If only Sandy Hook principal had an assault rifle, everyone would have been saved. Speaking to host Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday, the Republican congressman from Texas let loose with this, as transcribed by the Huffington Post: "Chris, I wish to God she had had an M4 in her office, locked up so when she heard gunfire, she pulls it out ... and takes him out and takes his head off before he can kill those precious kids," Gohmert said. The M4 is the rifle favored by the U.S. military; you can view its specs on the site of its manufacturer, Colt. Yeah, that'll fix everything. This article has been corrected. The category of gun represented by the M4 was originally misidentified; it is an assault rifle. Adele M. Stan is AlterNet's Washington correspondent. She co-edited, with Don Hazen, the AlterNet book, Dangerous Brew: Exposing the Tea Party's Agenda to Take Over America. Follow her on Twitter: www.twitter.com/addiestan . Send tips to: adele@alternet.org ======================== NRA wants armed guards in schools Fri, Dec 21 13:23 PM EST 1 of 18 By Patricia Zengerle and Dan Burns and Edith Honan WASHINGTON/NEWTOWN, Connecticut (Reuters) - The powerful U.S. gun rights lobby went on the offensive on Friday arguing that schools should have armed guards, on a day that Americans remembered the victims of the Newtown, Connecticut school massacre with a moment of silence. Speaking in Washington, LaPierre urged lawmakers to station armed police officers in all schools by the time students return from the Christmas break in January. LaPierre did not take questions from reporters. Earlier on Friday, church bells rang out in tree-lined suburban Newtown and up and down the East Coast at 9:30 a.m. EST in memory of the victims of the attack on December 14 in which 28 people, including the gunman, were killed.

"The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," said Wayne LaPierre, chief executive of the National Rifle Association, noting that banks and airports are patrolled by armed guards, while schools typically are not. His remarks - in which he charged that the news media and violent video games shared blame for the second-deadliest school shooting in U.S. history - were twice interrupted by protesters who unfurled signs and shouted "stop the killing." LaPierre's comments came at the end of a week when President Barack Obama commissioned a new White House task force to find a way to quell violence, a challenge in a nation with a strong culture of individual gun ownership. "We have to have a comprehensive way in which to respond to the mass murder of our children that we saw in Connecticut," Vice President Joe Biden, who heads the task force, said on Thursday.

The U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to bear arms and hundreds of millions of weapons are in private hands. About 11,100 Americans died in gun-related killings in 2011, not including suicides, according to preliminary data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Some U.S. lawmakers called for swift passage of an assault weapons ban. Some Newtown residents have already launched an effort aimed at tightening rules on gun ownership.

"What I feel is a sense of guilt because I've been a strong advocate of gun control for years," said John Dewees, 61, who was in downtown Newtown, where a makeshift memorial rose several feet around two Christmas trees with teddy bears and flower bouquets. "I wish I'd been more vocal. You wonder, had we all been, could we have averted this?"

SHATTERED ILLUSION OF SAFETY The attack, which killed 20 first graders ages 6 and 7, shattered the illusion of safety in this close-knit town of 27,000 people where many residents knew someone affected by the attacks. "There's just so many connections," said Jay Petrusaitis, whose son was in the same high school class as the gunman. Churches as far south as Florida and at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., rang their bells. Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy had called for residents of his state to observe the moment of silence to mark a week since a 20-year-old gunman killed his mother and then stormed Sandy Hook Elementary School. He killed a total of 28 people that day, including six school teachers and staff in a rampage that ended when he turned his gun on himself. Governors in Maine, Illinois, Michigan and several other states also called for moments of silence. The gunman, Adam Lanza, used a military-style assault rifle and police said he carried hundreds of bullets in high-capacity magazines, as well as two handguns. The weapons were legally purchased and registered to his mother, Nancy, his first victim. (Writing by Scott Malone; Editing by Will Dunham and Vicki Allen) ============== Arizona sheriff plans to form armed posse for schools Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio Fri Dec 28, 2012 5:15PM GMT 0 3 1 Related Interviews: 'Drugs generate violence in US society' ‘American militarism promotes violence’ Related Viewpoints: Moral decline triggers US mass killings A sheriff in the US state of Arizona says he is planning to form an armed volunteer posse to protect students from a repeat of the mass shooting in Connecticut’s Sandy Hook Elementary school. Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said on Thursday that he did not plan to put posse members inside schools but to post them around the perimeters. Arpaio announced his plan after two other Arizona officials revealed ideas for boosting school security. In a statement released on December 26, Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne proposed a plan to train and arm one administrator or teacher in each school as a way to prevent shooting incidents. Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu also proposed training multiple educators per school to carry guns. There have been several deadly shootings across the United States over the past few weeks, putting the issue of lax gun control laws back in the spotlight again. On December 14, twenty children and six adults were fatally shot by a gunman - who later killed himself - at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown in the US state of Connecticut. The assailant had killed his mother earlier in the day. In a shooting incident a week later, four people, including the shooter, were killed in the state of Pennsylvania. A number of police officers were reportedly injured during the fire exchange. More than 100,000 Americans have signed an online petition to the White House, dubbed “We the People,” asking the President Barack Obama administration for a renewed national debate on gun control.