"I don't think the founding fathers had the idea that every man, woman and child could carry an assault weapon. I think the president through his leadership could get a bill like that through Congress, but at least he's got to try."
~(New York mayor Michael Bloomberg)~
Barack Obama is under intensifying pressure to take the lead in a campaign for greater gun control following the disclosure by police that the Newtown gunman used a semi-automatic assault rifle equipped with "numerous" high-capacity magazines holding hundreds of bullets to carry out his massacre of young children.
Connecticut state police confirmed the identity of the killer on Sunday as Adam Lanza, 20, and revealed that he carried out his dreadful killing spree of 20 six- and seven-year-olds and six adults in Sandy Hook elementary school using a Bushmaster semi-automatic assault rifle. Lanza also carried several high-capacity magazines each holding 30 rounds, with police confirming they found hundreds of bullets at the scene.
Lanza also carried several high-capacity magazines for the Glock and Sig Sauer handguns that he brought with him to the school, said lieutenant Paul Vance of the Connecticut state police. He used one the handguns to kill himself, said Vance, who also confirmed that he had killed his mother Nancy before going to the school.
The emerging details explain how Lanza managed to kill so many people in a relatively short period, believed to be under 10 minutes, before police arrived.
New York mayor Michael Bloomberg and leading US senators pressed the president on Sunday to tell Congress to reinstate a ban on assault weapons which are common to almost all recent mass shootings in the US, including Friday's tragedy in Connecticut.
"I don't think the founding fathers had the idea that every man, woman and child could carry an assault weapon," said Bloomberg. "I think the president through his leadership could get a bill like that through Congress, but at least he's got to try."
The debate has also widened to include questions about treatment of the mentally ill, another factor common to most recent mass killings in America. Joe Lieberman, another Connecticut senator, called for a national commission to examine America's gun laws and mental health system as well as the role violent video games and movies have in mass shootings.
Pro-gun rights politicians have gone to ground. NBC's Meet the Press said it had invited the 31 senators, Republican and Democrat, who openly oppose stricter gun control laws to appear on the programme with Bloomberg and Feinstein. None accepted.
The National Rifle Association, the largest and most influential of the gun rights lobby groups, has been similarly silent since the massacre.
***
"The only thing that
stops
a bad person with a gun
is
a good person with a gun."
SANDY HOOK
ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
MASSACRE
"Politics
is
the art of postponing a decision
until
it is no longer relevant."
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