Search Warrants Reveal New Sandy Hook Evidence

The release of search warrants by the prosecutor shed new light on the mass killings at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The new information also shows how proposed gun safety regulations could have reduced the carnage at Sandy Hook had they had been in place at the time of the shooting.

An article in the Washington Post (3/28/13) summarizes the attack at the school. “Adam Lanza killed 26 people inside Sandy Hook Elementary School with a Bushmaster .223-caliber rifle and took his own life with a Glock 10mm handgun within five minutes of shooting his way into the building, State’s Attorney Stephen J. Sedensky said. He said Lanza had another loaded handgun with him inside the school as well as three, 30-round magazines for the Bushmaster. Sedensky said 154 spent .223 casings were recovered at the scene.”

Sedensky continues. “A loaded 12-gauge Saiga shotgun was found in the Honda Civic Lanza drove to the school and the warrants said there were two magazines containing a total of 70 shotgun rounds. The warrant does not offer further explanation, and authorities did not respond to questions, but some Saiga shotguns can be fitted with magazines that hold up to 30 rounds.”

Proposed new gun safety regulations now being considered by the U.S. Senate include a ban on military-style assault weapons and a reduction in the capacity of magazines to 10 bullets. Had Lanza not had an assault rifle and had his ammunition magazines been limited to 10 bullets, some of the children killed at Sandy Hook would have survived and returned home with their parents. It was the volume and rapidity of gunfire that proved so devastating.

Adam Lanza went out of his way to use the largest magazines he could find to maximize the murder at Sandy Hook. The New York Times reports (3/28/13) (Connecticut Gov. Daniel) “Malloy, in a statement, noted that Mr. Lanza used 30-round magazines on his rampage, leaving at home magazines that held fewer bullets. ‘This is exactly why we need to ban high-capacity magazines and why we need to tighten our assault weapons ban,’ he said.”

The proposed gun safety regulations before the U.S. Senate also include a ban on “straw purchases” whereby a person who can legally buy firearms obtains them and then sells them to felons or others who cannot buy guns. Adam Lanza’s mother acted as a “straw purchaser” buying guns for her son. According to the Washington Post, “The weapons used in the shooting had all apparently been purchased by Lanza’s mother, Nancy, with whom he lived, said prosecutor Stephen J. Sedensky III, in a statement accompanying the warrants.”

Finally, the proposed gun safety regulations include universal background checks which would deny guns to felons and mentally disturbed individuals. Evidence abounds that Adam Lanza was mentally disturbed. He was a loner who spent a great deal of time in the basement of his home playing violent video games. The New York Times writes, “Last week, The New York Daily News, quoting someone who had attended a convention in New Orleans, revealed that Mr. Lanza had compiled a very large spreadsheet of mass killings and the weapons used in them.”

The Washington Post reports “News outlets including The Associated Press reported previously that Lanza showed interest in other mass killings. Some, including The Hartford Courant, reported that he had a particular interest in Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik who killed 77 people in twin attacks in 2011 in Norway’s worst peacetime massacre.”

So, to summarize, had the proposed gun safety regulations been in place before the shooting at Sandy Hook: (a) He would have been unable to pass a universal background check. (b) Even if he had passed the check, Lanza would have been unable to purchase military-style assault rifles and large capacity magazines. And (c) Lanza’s mother would have been unable to make “straw purchases” of guns for her son.

Most important, some of those small children killed at Sandy Hook would be alive today.