Gov.: Gunman Shot Self as 1st Responders Closed In The gunman in the Connecticut shooting rampage committed suicide as first responders closed in, the governor said Sunday, raising the specter that Adam Lanza had planned an even more gruesome massacre and was stopped short. Lanza blasted his way into the building and used a high-power rifle to kill 20 children and 6 adults, including the principal who tried to stop him, authorities said. As President Barack Obama prepared a visit and churches opened their doors to comfort a grieving town Sunday, federal agents fanned out to dozens of gun stores and shooting ranges across Connecticut, chasing leads they hoped would cast light on Lanza's life. Among the questions: Why did his mother, a well-to-do suburban divorcee, keep a cache of high-power weapons in the house? And, above all, what set him on a path to go classroom-by-classroom, massacring 6- and 7-year-olds? Speaking on ABC's "This Week," Gov. Dannel Malloy said Lanza shot himself as police entered the building. "We surmise that it was during the second classroom episode that he heard responders coming and apparently at that, decided to take his own life," Malloy said. Malloy offered no possible motive for the shooting and a law enforcement official has said police have found no letters or diaries left behind that could shed light on it. This 2005 photo provided by neighbor Barbara Frey and verified by Richard Novia, shows Adam Lanza. Authorities have identified Lanza as the gunman who killed his mother at their home and then opened fire Friday, Dec. 14, 2012, inside an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., killing 26 people, including 20 children, before killing himself. Novia was the school district's former head of security and he advised the school technology club that Adam and his older brother belonged to. (AP Photo/Barbara Frey) Close There were as many as 11 shots on the bodies he examined. The tragedy has plunged Newtown into mourning and added the picturesque New England community of 27,000 people to the grim map of towns where mass shootings in recent years have periodically reignited the national debate over gun control but led to little change. At St. John's Episcopal Church, 54-year-old Donna Denner, an art teacher at an elementary school in nearby Danbury whose classroom was locked down after the shooting, said she feels the same way she did after 9/11 but isn't sure the rest of the country does.