Post date: Dec 15, 2012 2:41:34 PM
The front pages of major UK newspapers express shock and horror over a massacre in a Connecticut school, echoing similar sentiments expressed across Europe.
LONDON, ENGLAND, UK (DECEMBER 15, 2012) (REUTERS) - The international community registered its horror on Saturday (December 15) at one of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history, after a 20-year-old gunman slaughtered 20 children at an elementary school on Friday (December 14).
The attack in the small Connecticut community of Newtown, saw a man identified by law enforcement sources as Adam Lanza, who once attended Newtown High School, open fire on Friday morning at Sandy Hook Elementary School, which serves children aged 5 to 10.He ultimately killed at least 27 people, including himself.
Police said another adult was found dead at a related crime scene in the town, which many media accounts indicated may have been the shooter's mother, Nancy Lanza.
State police said they hoped to have more information by Saturday morning, including confirmation of the victims' identities. More than 12 hours after the shootings, police began removing the bodies from the school and bringing in parents to make identifications, NBC News reported.
The front pages of majors newspapers in the UK carried pictures of shocked schoolchildren after they were rescued from the school grounds, calling it a 'massacre' and 'slaughter of kids in primary school'.
The holiday season tragedy was the second shooting rampage in the United States this week and the latest in a series of mass killings this year, and is certain to revive a debate about U.S. gun laws.
British Prime Minister David Cameron said in a statement: "My thoughts are with the injured and those who have lost loved ones. It is heartbreaking to think of those who have had their children robbed from them at such a young age, when they had so much life ahead of them."
Though news broke on a Friday evening, limiting official commentary, newspaper websites and broadcasters devoted non-stop live coverage to events unfolding in Newtown, where police said a lone gunman had killed 20 children and six adults.
Germany, France, Britain and other European countries have suffered similar mass shootings - in Norway, one man killed 77 people only last year - but commentators inEurope were quick to point to Americans' much higher levels of personal gun ownership as a factor in the frequency of shootings there.