This morning, a gunman killed at least 20 children and six adults before shooting himself at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT.  Speculation about the crime swirls as details about this tragedy continue to emerge.

Using detailed American Community Survey data from 2006-10, Social Explorer takes a look at who lives in Newtown. We also compared the area with Columbine, Colorado, the site of a tragic high school shooting in 1999, and Aurora, Colorado, where a movie theater shooting took place earlier this year.

Map of Newtown, CT (click to explore)

Newtown, is a small borough 65 miles northeast of New York City. Of the 1,998 residents, there were 246 children under the age of 10.

Residents are well off, with median household incomes of $106,141 (over twice the national median income), and median owner-occupied home values of $459,800 (compared to $188,400 for the nation, and $296,500 for Connecticut).

The top industries include:

• Educational services, and health care and social assistance (20.2 percent)
• Retail trade (12.9 percent)
• Manufacturing (12.8 percent)
• Finance and insurance, and real estate and rental and leasing (11.6 percent)

And top occupations include:

• Professional and related occupations (25.0 percent)
• Management, business, and financial operations occupations (21.9 percent)
• Sales and related occupations (15.3 percent)
• Transportation and material moving occupations (9.5 percent)

The following charts compare a few demographic traits of Newtown, Aurora (population 314,092), Columbine (population 23,972), and the entire US, based on 2006-10 ACS data.  For more on the data and to create your own reports, visit Social Explorer's reports tool.