Connecticut: Most children in Newtown returned to classes Tuesday for the first time since last week’s massacre, but survivors of the shooting stayed home and their school remained a crime scene.
Four days after a disturbed 20-year-old shot his mother, then 20 first-graders and six staff at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, the debate over America’s lax gun laws hit a new pitch with President Barack Obama coming out in support of a new bill that would ban assault weapons.
Adam Lanza’s principal firearm in Friday’s massacre was a military grade Bushmaster semiautomatic rifle, exactly the kind of gun that would be banned if the Obama-backed bill gets past Congress — something far from guaranteed.
But in Newtown, there were more immediate worries, as yellow school buses rolled through thin drizzle at the delayed start of the school week.
It was only a baby step back toward normality in a town that had been known for low crime and a tight sense of community until the shootings.
Classes began with up to two hours delay and extra security was posted outside buildings.
At Hawley Elementary School, a couple accompanying their young son held hands and hugged the policeman at the entrance.
“He was very happy to get back with his friends,” one mother said, declining to give her name. But the father said he could not describe his emotions on what should have been an ordinary school run.
“There are no words. Just tears,” he said.
Survivors of the Sandy Hook massacre stayed at home, and were expected to return to classes later this week in a spare school near Newtown. Detectives and forensic scientists continued to pore over their school building in a painstaking attempt to piece together what happened when Lanza opened fire.
In a sign of the heavy hearts in this picturesque New England town, the front grills of all school buses were decorated with green-and-white bows, the colors of Sandy Hook school. “The bows were hand-made overnight by the company’s owners and employees,” said Joan Baumgart of All-Star Transportation, which runs 50 school buses in Newtown.
Burials, which started Monday with two boys laid to rest, were continuing all week.
On Tuesday, funerals were being held for a young girl and boy, and wakes were scheduled for another boy and girl, as well as one of the teachers shot dead. They were to be buried Wednesday.
 Meanwhile, police remain tight-lipped about what they’ve found that might explain why Lanza, who had no history of violence, snapped.
Searches have concentrated on the school, but also the house were Adam Lanza and his mother Nancy lived — and where he shot her at the start of his spree.
Among the items being examined are the rifle and pistols that Lanza carried and which were owned by his mother. There have also been reports that the hard drive to his computer is getting close attention.
Bit by bit, a picture is emerging of a boy whom no one knew well and a mother who did everything to care for him, but, fatally, introduced him to her passion for target shooting at ranges.
Former schoolmate Alan Diaz told CNN that Lanza was “a very intelligent person” who had the “stereotypical nerd look” and unlike the backpack-toting classmates, always carried a computer bag.
“We all kind of knew that, like, he had problems socially and we kind of had a feeling that he might have had something wrong with him,” Diaz said.
He recalled playing violent computer games with Lanza, but said he was surprised to hear that his friend was going shooting with his mother.
“I never really imagined Adam wanting to hold a gun,” he said. “I don’t imagine shy, quiet people going to a shooting range.”
Reflecting the general mystification over Lanza’s meltdown, Diaz said: “At one point he was a good kid. The events he did that day may have been evil, but before then he was just another kid.”
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