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In a move likely to renew a longstanding ethical controversy, geneticists are quietly making plans to study the DNA of Adam Lanza, 20, who killed 20 children and seven adults in Newtown, Conn. Their work will be an effort to discover biological clues to extreme violence.

other experts speculated that the geneticists might look for mutations that might be associated with mental illnesses and ones that might also increase the risk for violence.

But whatever they do, this apparently is the first time researchers will attempt a detailed study of the DNA of a mass killer.

In the two years since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, no school shooting has claimed as many lives, nor ones as young, as on that terrible day. But fatal gun attacks at schools and on college campuses remain a fixture of American life. They have occurred once every five weeks on average since Sandy Hook, including two attacks—one in Santa Monica and another near Seattle—in which four or more victims were killed.

dozens of other gun incidents on school grounds that caused injuries, as well as seven additional cases where someone committed suicide with a firearm, but no one else died

Gun violence has regularly been at the political forefront since Newtown. While Congress failed to pass a background check bill four months after the devastation, state lawmakers nationwide approved more than a hundred laws either strengthening or weakening restrictions on firearms in the first year after Sandy Hook alone

For more than a decade, both parties in Washington have mostly looked the other way when mass shootings occur. And they have mostly ignored the 34 victims who are murdered with guns every single day.

prohibit the manufacture and sale of the military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition clips that have been used in too many mass shootings, including in Newtown. The previous ban on assault weapons expired in 2004. While President George W. Bush supported reinstating it, Congress never acted. The time has plainly come.

fix the broken background check system. Currently, nearly half of all gun sales in the U.S. are conducted without a background check. Criminals, the mentally ill, minors and domestic abusers are all prohibited from purchasing guns, but they all can do so as easily as attending a gun show or going online.

The college years — a time for important growth in autonomy and the consolidation of adult identity and life goals — have evolved into an extended period of adolescence during which many of today’s students are not saddled with adult responsibilities.

For previous generations, college was a decisive break from parental supervision; guidance and support needed to come from peers and from within.

In the past two decades, however, continued family contact and dependence, thanks to cellphones, email and social media, has increased significantly — some parents go so far as to help with coursework.

On Sunday, President Obama called for making it harder to buy assault weapons after the terrorist attack in San Bernardino, Calif. On Monday, the stock prices of two top gun makers, Smith & Wesson and Ruger, soared.

“President Obama has actually been the best salesman for firearms,” said Brian W. Ruttenbur, an analyst with BB&T Capital Markets

Fear of gun-buying restrictions has been the main driver of spikes in gun sales, far surpassing the effects of mass shootings and terrorist attacks alone, according to federal background-check data

Here are three of the most prominent rumors that have spread on online platforms such as Twitter, Gab, 4chan and Reddit.

Among their unfounded claims were that the shooting had been orchestrated to draw local law enforcement away from the border, allowing criminals and drugs to cross into the United States, and that gun-control advocates had organized the tragedy to stoke public outrage.

he conspiracy theorist and broadcaster Alex Jones of Infowars has lied for years that the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., was staged by the federal government, with people pretending to be survivors and victims’ parents. Last year, Mr. Jones lost four defamation lawsuits filed by victims’ families, many of whom have been harassed by his believers.

“I traced a throughline: from Sandy Hook to Pizzagate to QAnon to Charlottesville and the coronavirus myths to the election lie that brought violence to the Capitol on January 6th,” she told Vox earlier this year. “I started to understand how individuals, for reasons of ideology or social status, tribalism, or for profit, were willing to reject established truths, and how once they’d done that, it was incredibly difficult to persuade them otherwise.”

She describes the 2012 mass shooting in Newtown, CT as “a foundational moment in the world of misinformation and disinformation that we now live in.”

the NYT’s Elizabeth Williamson about her book, Sandy Hook: An American Tragedy and the Battle for Truth, which was recently named one of the best books of 2022 by Publishers Weekly.