US investigators seek answers to Georgia school shooter's motive and access to gun possession

The shooting reignited the national debate about gun control and sparked a wave of grief in a country where such attacks are a regular occurrence.

In Winder, a town of 18,000 residents about 80 kilometers northeast of Atlanta, people gathered in a park for a vigil on Wednesday evening.

The shooting was the first planned attack on a school this fall, said David Riedman, who maintains the K-12 school shooting database. Apalachee students returned to school last month; many other students across the U.S. are returning this week.

There have been hundreds of school and university shootings in the United States over the past two decades, the worst of which left more than 30 people dead at Virginia Tech in 2007. The carnage has intensified the heated debate over gun laws and the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which enshrines the right to “keep and bear arms.”