On Friday, as Newtown, Connecticut joined the list of places like Littleton, Colorado, and Jonesboro, Arkansas, where schools became the scenes of stunning violence, the questions were familiar: Why does it happen? What can be done to stop it? The questions have emerged after all of the mass killings in recent decades — a Virginia college campus, a Colorado movie theatre, a Wisconsin temple — but they took on an added sting when the victims included children. The fact that the Newtown massacre, with 26 killed at the school, along with the gunman, was the second deadliest school shooting in the country’s history —after the 32 people killed at Virginia Tech in 2007 — once again made this process of examination urgent national business as details emerged from Sandy Hook Elementary School. > PDF: Deadliest U.S. mass shootings This painful corner of modern U.S. history does offer some answers: Many of the mass killers had histories of mental illness, with warning signs missed … [Read more...] about Difficult questions are asked once more