The killer gunned down 20 children—18 of whom perished in the school, two dying in the hospital; six adults were among the dead as well. The massacre’s toll makes it the second-deadliest shooting in U.S. history, surpassed only by the 2007 shooting at Virginia Tech University in which 33 people were killed. Officials said the assailant took his own life; the police reportedly did not fire a single shot. Adam Lanza, as the alleged gunman was identified in several press reports, was 20-years old, a year under the legal limit for gun ownership in Connecticut. The weapons he used, including the two 9 mm handguns reportedly found by his body, were allegedly registered to his mother Nancy. She was reported to be a teacher at Sandy Hook, and it may have been her class that was attacked. She too was listed among the dead—but it was not yet clear whether her body was found at the school or elsewhere.

　　The personal tale of the assailant is likely to take a familiar narrative arc. Already there is speculation of untreated mental illness or incapacity. In the age of Facebook and Twitter, his brother Ryan, 24, was apparently misidentified as the shooter until web denials came flooding through, not an hour after the wrong information emerged—and spread all over. Ryan lived in a second-floor apartment with three roommates in Hoboken, New Jersey. He had been taken in for questioning in the early afternoon — but by Friday evening had been cleared of any involvement in the massacre. Well into the night, reporters remained positioned with a line of cameras across the street, aimed directly at the five-story brick building

　　The police officers of Newtown were dispatched to another crime scene, away from the school, and speculation immediately focused on a house on Yogananda Street in Newtown where Adam Lanza reportedly lived with his mother. There were reports her body was found there.

　　In a speech delivered six hours after the tragedy, the visibly shaken President of the United States wiped away several tears, saying “As a country, we’ve been through this too many times, we’re going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent tragedies like this, regardless of the politics.” Later, a subdued demonstration by gun control advocates was held outside the White House. The day before the massacre, the National Rifle Association’s twitter feed had claimed that the organization’s Facebook page had notched a record 1.7 million “likes.”