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.
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