Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting: Latest news

A U.S. flag flies at half staff in front of the Reed Intermediate School in Newtown, Connecticut Earlier today, a single shooter entered Sandy Hook Elementary School, in Newtown, Connecticut, opening fire on the staff and children. A scant few additional details and other news relating to today's tragedy:

• 20 elementary school children, 7 adults and the shooter himself have died. According to authorities the gunman, identified as Adam Lanza, committed suicide at the scene.
• According to NBC News, two handguns used in the shooting were registered to Lanza's mother, a teacher at the school. She was found dead in her Newtown home. A .223-caliber rifle also was found in the gunman's car.
• President Obama's remarks on the shooting can be found here.
• From Mother Jones, last November:
  

  After another young man unleashed horror inside a Colorado movie theater this July, we set out to track mass shootings in the United States over the last 30 years. We identified and analyzed 61 of them'24 in the last seven years alone.

  No less than 80 percent of the perpetrators in these 61 cases obtained their weapons legally. [A]ccording to additional research we completed recently, at least 38 of them displayed signs of mental health problems prior to the killings.

• Mike Huckabee may have won the contest for meanest response of the day:
  

  'We ask why there is violence in our schools, but we have systematically removed God from our schools.  Should we be surprised that schools would become places of carnage?' ['] 'Maybe we ought to let (God) in on the front end, and we wouldn't have to call Him up when it's all said and done at the back end,' Huckabee argued.

• Or maybe not:
  Gun Owners of America head Larry Pratt: "Gun control supporters have the blood of little children on their hands"
  ' @jamiedupree via TweetDeck

• "F--- You CNN"
• A candlelight vigil was held outside the White House this evening.
• Multiple petitions on whitehouse.gov have been established demanding stricter gun regulations. At least one of these has already received over the 25,000 signatures necessary for an administration response; you can sign it here.

Please sign the petition asking President Obama to help start a national conversation about gun control.