President Obama has vowed to take action against gun violence in the United States following the shooting rampage that left 27 people dead, including 20 young children, in Newtown, Connecticut. All the children were aged between six and seven. It was the deadliest rampage at an elementary school in U.S. history. The gunman, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, shot his mother dead at their home before driving to the Sandy Hook Elementary School and forcing his way inside. Armed with a high-powered rifle, two handguns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, Lanza shot up two classrooms — kindergarten and first grade — before taking his own life as police arrived at the scene. Lanza still had hundreds of additional rounds of ammo and another weapon in his car, suggesting he would have carried out more shootings had the police not closed in. Twelve of the victims were girls, and eight were boys. All six of the adult victims were women. The school victims all appeared to have suffered multiple gunshot wounds. Connecticut’s chief medical examiner, Dr. Wayne Carver, called the crime scene the worst he had ever witnessed.

Dr. Wayne Carver: “I’ve been at this for a third of a century, and it’s — my sensibilities may not be the average man, but this probably is the worst I have seen or the worst that I know of any of my colleagues having seen. We did not bring the bodies and the families into contact. We took pictures of them, of their facial features. You have — it’s easier on the families when you do that.”