Those were among a chilling inventory of items the police found in the home where Adam Lanza plotted one of the deadliest school shootings in the nation's history, according to search warrants of the home unsealed for the first time since the Newtown massacre in December.
Mr. Lanza, 20, killed his mother, Nancy Lanza, on Dec. 14 in the spacious yellow home they shared in Newtown. He then drove to Sandy Hook Elementary School, which he attended as a child, and killed 20 first graders and 6 educators before killing himself as police officers arrived.
The search warrants, which a judge agreed to partially redact at the request of prosecutors, shed a glimmer of light on Mr. Lanza's inner world that, more than three months after the tragedy, has largely remained a mystery. The documents' release comes as state lawmakers in Hartford have been meeting on a daily basis in an effort to write a bipartisan bill that addresses gun violence and mental health issues.
Lawrence Cafero Jr., the minority leader of the Connecticut House, and others have been sharply critical of the State Police, the lead investigative agency, for refusing to turn over preliminary details of the investigation even as some information has been leaked to reporters and shared at law enforcement conventions.
Last week, The New York Daily News, quoting someone who had attended a convention in New Orleans, revealed that Mr. Lanza compiled a very large spreadsheet of mass killings and the weapons used in them.
The Hartford Courant previously reported that investigators had found news articles about the Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik in one of two bedroom he used in the home. Mr. Breivik killed 77 people in two attacks in July 2011, most of them teenagers who were attending a summer camp.
Some lawmakers have complained that the information withheld by the State Police could help in the drafting of legislation. Under pressure from Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and various lawmakers, the Chief State's Attorney's Office is expected to release additional information from the investigation soon, possibly Thursday, though the State Police say a full report may not be complete until June.
Since the shootings, vague portraits of the gunman and his mother have emerged, showing a young loner who spent hours in a darkened basement room playing violent video games, and a woman who had collected several weapons, including powerful handguns and a semiautomatic rifle that she and her son enjoyed shooting.
The police say Mr. Lanza used a Bushmaster XM15-E2S semiautomatic rifle with several 30-round magazines in the attack at the school and also carried two semiautomatic handguns, one of which he used to kill himself. The police also found a 12-gauge shotgun in the car he drove to the school. Officials have said he fired more than 150 rounds in the school.
As the police combed through his home after the shooting, they discovered Ms. Lanza lying dead in a bed in a second-floor bedroom with a gunshot wound to her forehead and a rifle nearby.
They also found hundreds of rounds of ammunition and a host of weapons in a brown safe and in bedroom closets. The police also discovered numerous books related to autism, including one titled "Born on a Blue Day – Inside the Mind of an Autistic Savant." Another book was called "Train Your Brain to Get Happy."
The police also found a certificate from the National Rifle Association bearing the name Adam Lanza, and an N.R.A. guide to the basics of pistol shooting.
Among other items police officers found were seven journals written by Mr. Lanza, along with several of his drawings. The contents of the journals or the nature of the drawings was not disclosed. They also found three photographs of what appeared to be a dead person covered with plastic and what appears to be blood, and a New York Times article dated Feb. 18, 2008, about a school shooting at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Ill. In that shooting, Steven Kazmierczak killed 5 people and injured 21 on Valentine's Day before he killed himself.
The day of the Newtown shooting, agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation interviewed a person who said Mr. Lanza rarely left his home. The person, whose name is redacted, considered Mr. Lanza to be a "shut-in and an avid gamer who plays Call of Duty, amongst other games," a law enforcement affidavit accompanying the warrants stated.
The search warrants, and reports of what the police found in their searches, were initially sealed for two weeks after the shootings, but the Danbury state's attorney, Stephen Sedensky III, received a 90-day extension, which expired on Wednesday. Mr. Sedensky wrote in his court motion that the search warrant affidavits contained information that "is not known to the general public and any potential suspect(s), the disclosure of which would jeopardize the investigation and chances of successfully solving any crime(s) involved."
The documents released include inventories from searches of the Lanzas' home at 36 Yogananda Street in Newtown and of the 2010 black Honda Civic Mr. Lanza drove to the school. Prosecutors redacted the names of witnesses cooperating with the police, emphasizing in particular one "citizen witness." Identifying the witness, Mr. Sedensky wrote in his motion to redact, "could jeopardize" the person's safety.
Whether the documents prove beneficial to lawmakers as they negotiate a gun-control package remains to be seen.
Mr. Lanza's assault put Connecticut squarely in the center of a national debate over gun violence and firearms restrictions. But some Democrats and advocates of gun control in the state are concerned over how long the lawmakers are taking to introduce a bill, while other states like New York and Colorado have already enacted new limits on assault rifles or ammunition.
Time, some gun control advocates fear, is an enemy, even in a state traumatized by the killings and with widespread support, according to opinion polls, for new restrictions. But the state is also home to several gun manufacturers that have in the past successfully argued that restrictions would cost local jobs. And gun rights supporters have turned out in force at hearings and rallies to urge legislators not to use the Sandy Hook deaths to curtail what they regard as their constitutional rights.
In the wake of the attack, legislative leaders set up a bipartisan task force to study gun control and mental health issues and hoped to introduce legislation by the end of February. When that deadline passed, they set a new goal to have a package within three months of the attack, but that deadline passed, too.
Now lawmakers hope to have a bill introduced as early as next week. Democrats and Republicans agree on many of its elements, including expanded background checks, enhanced safe-storage requirements and additional regulations on buying ammunition. People close to the negotiations say that the list of assault weapons under an existing ban could be expanded and that the bill could restrict the sale of magazines that hold more than 10 bullets.
Gun-control advocates and some of the families of Newtown victims want a sterner bill that would also make it illegal to possess larger magazines, even those already owned.
