AMANDA ELLINGSON

If you were on Twitter early in the morning of Dec. 14, you may have noticed that “Conn” was trending. Upon investigating, you would have found that there was a school shooting in Newtown, Conn.

Besides feeling bad for the victims and their families, it seems normal to write this off as some high school student who was angry at the world. What makes the Newtown shooting different is that it was at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Worse, the alleged gunman was 20-year old Adam Lanza (originally misidentified as his older brother, Ryan), whose mother was found dead at her home (contrary to earlier reports, she was not a teacher at Sandy Hook). Worst of all, most of the shootings took place in a kindergarten classroom.

Twenty-seven people are dead, including Lanza and twenty children in the shooting that started just after the late bell Friday morning. This makes it the second-worst school shooting in United States history, just behind the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, which killed thirty-two people.

Including the recent Portland, Ore. shooting this marks the thirteenth mass murder in the United States this year.

As of Dec. 14, six of the top nine trends on Twitter have to do with the shooting.