Sandy Hook Massacre Case Study

On December 14, 2012, Adam Lanza, 20-year-old resident of Newtown, Connecticut, shot and killed 20 children and six staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary. Before going to the elementary, Lanza shot and killed his mother in their home. Once police officers arrived at the school, Lanza shot himself in the head, dying immediately (Jordan 2014). This has been one of the most fatal school shootings in the United States, second only to the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, claiming 33 lives. The incident at Sandy Hook began at 9:35 a.m. and Lanza fired the final bullet to the back of his own head at 9:40 a.m according to the State’s Attorney Report (Sedensky 2013). The attack claiming 27 lives occurred in five minutes in addition to his mother, a total

Nutter, mayor of Philadelphia and President of the United States Conference of Mayors testified before the U.S. Senate committee on the judiciary topic of the proposed assault weapons ban (Lane 2015). Nutter’s opening statement is empathizing with senator Feinstein by sharing a story about how when he first got into office one of his senior police officers was killed in a supermarket bank robbery, leaving a wife and three children behind. He then goes on to mention the most significant mass shootings in history, specifically Virginia Tech claiming 32 lives and Columbine claiming 13. Philadelphia’s citizens have been killed by handguns, and assault rifles. America’s mayors have come to a consensus that these weapons of mass destruction are destroying the nation’s communities, cities, and families. Nutter goes on to reveal some surprising information, stating that out of the average 100,000 people that are shot each year, over 30 percent end up dying, while only 10 percent were intentional homicides (Lane 2015). Every year approximately 18,000 children are shot, only further proving the school shooter epidemic our country faces. This sort of violence is nearly exclusive to urban areas, as cities make up 15 percent of the population but account for 39 percent gun related murders and 23 percent total homicides. Nutter is proposing a ban on assault weapons, quite similar to a 1994 ban that decreased total gun murders by 6.7 percent and the types of shootings they were most often used in, specifically ones with multiple victims and police officers as victims. Nutter proposes to ban the sale, manufacture, transfer, and importation of 157 common types of assault rifles, ban large capacity magazines, and prohibit the sale or transfer of high holding ability ammunition dispensing