Guns and Gear

Obama: Newtown children killed with ‘fully automatic weapon’

Vince Coglianese Editorial Director
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President Obama told a group of Democratic donors Wednesday night that the children killed in the Newtown, Conn. attack last December were shot with a “fully automatic weapon.”

Speaking to donors at a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee fundraiser in San Francisco, Obama urged the need for “gun control,” and referred for the first time to an alleged “fully automatic weapon” involved in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, which took the lives of 20 children and 6 adults.

From the White House transcript (emphasis added):

“Now, over the next couple of months, we’ve got a couple of issues:  gun control.  (Applause.)  I just came from Denver, where the issue of gun violence is something that has haunted families for way too long, and it is possible for us to create common-sense gun safety measures that respect the traditions of gun ownership in this country and hunters and sportsmen, but also make sure that we don’t have another 20 children in a classroom gunned down by a semiautomatic weapon — by a fully automatic weapon in that case, sadly.

ABC News reported that the shooter, Adam Lanza, “killed all 26 victims inside Sandy Hook Elementary School with a Bushmaster .223-caliber rifle before taking his own life with a Glock 10 mm handgun.”

Neither weapon is an automatic weapon, which would continuously fire bullets with a single pull of the trigger.

With Obama’s help, the DCCC raised $3.2 million during the fundraising events in San Francisco.

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