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Another assault gun tragedy

A devastating but too familiar horror took place at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in an idyllic Connecticut town, Newtown, Dec. 14. Twenty-six were killed: 20 children, 6 to 10 years of age, and six adults. The perpetrator was 20-year-old Adam Lanza.

On another Friday four months and six days prior — July 20 — another mass shooting occurred inside a Century movie theater in Aurora, Colo., during a midnight screening of the film “The Dark Knight Rises.

A gunman, dressed in tactical clothing, set off tear gas grenades and shot into the audience with multiple firearms, killing 12 people and injuring 58. The shooter was 24-year-old James Eagan Holmes, who was arrested outside the cinema minutes later.

The names of the killers and locations of the carnage differ, but their weapon of choice does not. It is that same old reliable semi-automatic “hunting” — read: assault — rifle, sister to the military version minus the “semi.”

Nicholas Zizelis

Bayside