US shooting: Gunman kills 28, including 20 schoolchildren; pressure on Obama to act on gun laws

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, founder of the advocacy group Mayors Against Illegal Guns, said it was "almost impossible to believe that a mass shooting in a kindergarten class could happen.

"We need immediate action. We have heard all the rhetoric before. What we have not seen is leadership - not from the White House and not from Congress," he said. "That must end today."

Outside the White House gates, about 200 people rallied on a cold evening in favor of gun restrictions.

French President Francois Hollande, in an open letter to Obama, said he was "horrified" by the shootings. British Prime Minister David Cameron said, "It is heartbreaking to think of those who have had their children robbed from them at such a young age, when they had so much life ahead of them."

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expressed his condolences and called the targeting of children "heinous and unthinkable."

BLOODIED CHILDREN LEAVE SCHOOL

Vance said the shootings took place in two rooms of Sandy Hook Elementary. Witnesses reported hearing dozens of shots; some said as many as 100 rounds.

"It was horrendous," said parent Brenda Lebinski, who rushed to the school where her daughter is in the third grade. "Everyone was in hysterics - parents, students. There were kids coming out of the school bloodied."

Lebinski said a mother who was at the school during the shooting told her a "masked man" entered the principal's office and may have shot the principal.

Melissa Murphy, who lives near the school, monitored events on a police scanner.

"I kept hearing them call for the mass casualty kit and scream, 'Send everybody! Send everybody!'" she said. "It doesn't seem like it can be really happening. I feel like I'm in shock." The toll exceeded that of one of the most notorious U.S. school shootings, the 1999 rampage at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, where two teenagers killed 13 students and staff before killing themselves.

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