The firearms used by the shooter in the mass shooting today were legally owned and registered to the shooter’s mother, NBC is reporting. Four firearms were recovered, only two apparently used in the actual commission of the crime. For the most information on those guns see this piece which will be updated as more info becomes available.
Proves that Gun Control efforts are useless.
If mom had been carrying the gun instead of being forced to leave it home this may not have happened. And if the other school staff members had been carrying as free Americans should be this may have been stopped sooner.
the genie’s already out of the bottle. If the anti’s would stop trying to put the cork back and work with us honest gun people we may be able to come up with real solutions instead of spinning our wheels in a never ending battle to protect our rights.
Anytime I see a gun free zone or a state that doesn’t allow it’s citizens to carry oc or cc I see that the anti’s have created a climate that encourages these tragedies.
Well said, We are new to CC here in Wis. Before that there were just “acceptable losses” so doyle & his like could live in their fantasy world. What the anti’s are doing now is posting shopping centers right at the entrance, no weapons beyond this point. Technically they can’t do this. Stay tuned for the next one from Wisconsin/Milwaukee, Randy
A shopping center is a privately owned property, and the property owner has every right to decide who may be there, and what items they are allowed to have on their person.
The mother was at home at the time of the shooting, not at the school.
I read that the mother was one of the people he killed err murdered at the school.
No, she was killed at home, and he then went to the school. http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sandy-hook-elementary-school-shooting-leaves-students-staff-dead/2012/12/14/24334570-461e-11e2-8e70-e1993528222d_story.html
Real solutions such as killing people before they kill people?
Most stolen guns were originally “legally purchased”.
If the mother bought guns for the son because he wasn’t legally allowed to posses them (mental illness?), she contributed to this massacre.
And being under 21.
There could be fodder for an interesting article about the ethics and duties of gun owners with “adult” children.
Interesting twist… which leads to more questions:
-Was the mother *really* the owner? Was a she a straw buyer for her son?
-Is this her son’s way of sick irony, using his mother’s own gun to kill the very students she might have taught? Maybe some misplaced hatred that she dare to care about her students as much as/more than her own kid?
Makes me wonder why she didn’t have the guns locked up while leaving them at home, especially with news of previous mental concerns of her children.
Maybe it was her children that should have been locked up.
Or both. If her son was having a mental health crisis, both extraordinary security for the guns AND an intervention for the son were appropriate.
Alpha,
“AND an intervention for the son were appropriate.”
Unfortunately since ACL has intervened on so many mental health cases back in the 90’s combined with state mental institution government funding has been cut so much and health insurance has dropped mental health care. People have little help for mental issues and parents have zero legal control over adult children.
It is tragic but all the gun control laws will not stop the carnage and sleazy media/politicians know it.
+1
She probably did–but since when is a 20 year old a child?
Our government considers childhood to extend to 26
I’m not 100% certain on this, but unless those guns have given birth to other baby guns I think there needs to be an apostrophe in the word “Mother’s”. Just sayin…
These evil events make me physically ill every time they happen and they do make me question my sincerely held positions. I always ask myself if I am in some way unknowingly contributing to criminal violence. Then I stop and I think about it.
I didn’t pull the trigger. Neither did any of my friends. To all of us an act like this is unthinkable and evil in the extreme.
We’ve seen these monstrous mass shooting events occur in Norway, Finland, Germany, Britain (2010 taxi driver), etc. with far more restrictive gun laws than we have.
We know that the gun laws in this country just fifty years ago were far less restrictive than they are today. Back then we didn’t see these events occur that often or this severely. So what has changed? It’s clearly not the guns that are the problem.
I sure hope that the mother was an actual owner and wasn’t a straw purchaser. This is sounding more and more like the shooter was mentally unstable and should have been adjudicated as such just like Aurora, CO.
Just wait until the banners find out that the National Shooting Sports Foundation is located in Newtown.
Nick,
WTF on talking about the specific guns used in this atrocity. Our argument is that these are just tools used in a crime. It is the actions of a person that are important, not their chosen tool of destruction. You are playing to the antis by discussing the actual guns, as if they have some power on their own. Who gives an F how he did what it did.
Until we have more information about the actual shooter (and I’m loathe to start that up again until I see the chief of police mouthing his name for myself) all we can do is try to keep people (pundits) from spouting inaccurate facts about shoulder things that go up and fully automatic Glocks in civilian hands. I’ve had enough of rampant speculation for today, personally.
+1
Me too. Good job today, Nick.
I didn’t think about it that way but I see your point. Still, people that wander by this sight and see articles detailing the weapons used will not understand your motivation.
I agree with Nick
Nick,
I told you in a earler post too slow down.
Things will come out we don’t know about.
He killed his Mother at her home. Not at the school.
His Mother owned the guns.
I heard he was wearing a black vest.
You want to bet it wasn’t a cheap UTG or something from Amizon??? Or other site?
Just wait!
Guy22
He’s not playing to the antis — he’s doing the exact opposite. Pro-gun folks stand by the fact that guns are tools. So there’s nothing “anti” with pointing out what tools the evil crazy deceased murderer used in this horrible tragic crime.
A co-worker actually commented on this shooting this afternoon before I had heard all the facts. I just knew it was committed by a young man in his twenties and that he had murdered his mother before going on the spree.
My co-worker launched into an anti-gun spiel saying, “Oh, look another shooting. This wouldn’t have happened if he didn’t have guns. I don’t buy into the ‘guns don’t kill people, people kill people’ riff.” (paraphrased).
I knew the CT murderer was 20 years old, so I said “How can the guns be at fault? The fact he’s 20 years old probably means he stole the guns or I bet he got them from someone he murdered previously, probably his mother.” Bingo, that’s what happened. And then I mentioned there was a very similar killing spree in China with a knife. So explain that one away if guns are the cause of mass killings.
Yeah, blank stare after that.
In addition, I find it surprising that, as a gun owner who has gone through the process of purchasing a gun and taking a CHL class, I can more easily reach a logical conclusion about a series of events with limited information than an anti-gun person that doesn’t bother going past a knee jerk “it’s the gun’s fault” reaction….
I keep saying that there will not be a gun grab because there cannot be a gun grab in America for many reasons and that real solutions need to be found.
I keep trying having a real argument and then I hear the usual “bullets in the clip” nonsense.
Total lack of knowledge from folks who receive their gun education from Hollyweird.
I believe that anyone should be allowed to at least report to the authorities when someone who owns firearms has a mental problem and then allowing in some cases a temporary confiscation while psychological evaluation is done, but that is not infallible.
Anyone with a beef towards you could report you just to piss you off and see you aggravated while you are without your firearms and defenseless.
I don’t think that a shrink should necessarily interview you when you want to buy a gun either.
I agree, there isn’t an easy solution. I think the current method is sufficient, except for the silly part where you have a check box to say if you’re mentally stable.
I mean, really? That’s it? How about some sort of way of checking if that person has (or is currently) receiving psychiatric medication or therapy for any major issues that relate to violence?
A check box (filled out by the person wanting to buy the gun no less) just doesn’t cut it.
Re: tjlarson2k regarding the mental health check box on the federal 4473 form:
While I agree that the various check boxes individuals have to answer yes or no to on a 4473 likely encourage lying from dishonest buyers, the fact remains that every single firearm purchase requires an FBI NICS background check before the firearm is allowed to be transferred. As such, if criminal or mental health problems have been properly identified prior to the purchase, the NICS background check will come up as denied and the firearm will not be transferred to the individual, regardless of the answers they give on their 4473. My store has denied a good number of people who claimed no illegal activity or mental health issues, but whom were denied when we ran their NICS checks. I just wanted to offer this info. Again, this still relies on people being identified as being mentally ill, which tragically in this case did not happen in time. Since he stole his mother’s weapons, its a moot point regardless I suppose.
this is such a horrific situation, i wonder how he had access to these. Were they unsecured i wonder?
Wrong answer.
If you can’t be trusted with a gun, any gun, you need a custodian at all times. Or be locked up if no custodian is available.
In a hospital or skilled nursing facility flight risk patients have sitters or alarmed ankle bracelettes. Its perfectly okay to lock grandma away because we dont want to deal with her dementia but God forbid we do this to someone who intends to harm others. I guess human rights only applies to crimminals.
Well, I don’t see people saying the obvious. The murderer was an evil, evil example of human scum. No amount of mental health issues can come close to excusing murdering 20 little kids. Guns aren’t to blame, the mental health system is not to blame, the evil person who killed them is to blame. Most people want to ignore the reality of evil in the world by rationalizing it away as a question of mental health and gun control. The real question is what can good people do in the face of evil? The only answer is to resist and fight evil with all their strength. If we can recognize this basic truth, we have taken the first step towards defeating evil.
I agree. Most people refuse to recognize that evil exists. We are seeing real evil more and more in the horrible acts committed by these people.
As sad as this tragedy is, they can’t say an armed teacher would have cause more deaths in this case.
Anon: By the same token, I think the “if only someone had been armed” camp has it wrong this time, too. If the accounts I’ve read are accurate (and that’s a big “if”), the shooter went more or less straight to the classroom where the teacher and kids were killed. If that’s correct, the only armed adult who could have stopped him was the teacher actually in the room. If that teacher was one who chose not to carry a gun (because almost nobody is advocating mandatory arming of teachers), we’d still be having basically the same conversation we’re having now.
Yep. I don’t like the simplistic wish-thinking arguments that go on after this kind of thing.
What I do know, though, is that we shouldn’t punish people who had nothing to do with this and I’d rather have a small fighting chance than no chance. YMMV.
I dunno Matt…I’d like to think that if there was a nearby staff member with a handgun, they would have been able to put a stop to it sometime before victim #26.
Respectfully, nobody on this board was there and nobody knows. The report so far is that the principal and school counselor ran to the scene to try to intervene and were killed. Exceptionally brave. Maybe more effectual if they had been armed, maybe not, but they had a chance with a firearm and some training, which should be required to have a gun in a school.
The rest of the teachers did what they should have done: locked the door and got everyone out a window or on the floor away from the door, behind the heaviest thing in the room. Even an armed teacher in an adjacent room could not responsibly leave the students in the room by themselves and leave their door unlocked. It sucks, but to limit casualties you have to limit access to potential casualties.
The criminal always gets first-mover advantage. They may waste it somehow, display their firearm too early or otherwise tip people off, but you can’t pull a gun because someone looks fishy. Intervention in this one would have been hard, but given the laws it was functionally impossible in any event.
Most teachers are liberals and most likely anti-gun (I for one am a liberal and a gun owner -call me part of the first line of defense for our gun rights).
It is also likely that one of these days a teacher loses his mind and decides to go and shoot the kids himself (most may say it jokingly, one may go a step further).
It is a very passionate subject but few good solutions are heard.
Limiting magazine (I mean “clip”) capacity, banning CCW licenses, banning “assault rifles”, reducing the number of ammunition (I mean “bullets”) one can buy, none of this would have prevented what happened today.
Teachers aren’t the only adults in the building. Apparently the principal and a counselor went down to the schoolroom and were killed. Had they been armed, they might have had a chance of intervening. At many schools there are also secretaries, janitors, maintenance people, security guards, etc., and in many districts, every one of those people have to pass background checks to work in a school. So if there are these people around, then let them carry if they wish.
Maybe or maybe not. Look at cops that go into a situation informed, armed and preparted. Then things hit the fan. Having said that, I would still want the option to protect myself and my family rather than rest my hopes on others or pure luck.
I’m sitting on this info for a while. Considering how long it
took the anti-gun crowd to turn this into political fodder;
do any of us seriously expect that the MSM will truthfully
report exactly where the guns came from much less any
possible mental conditions?
Did LE already track down the serial numbers and tell/leak
it to the press? It’s still being reported that an AR-15 was
found. Conn. has an AWB, how did the mother even have one?
It might be true, but personally I think the MSM is not above
willfully lying about facts as they come out if something
doesn’t fit their agenda.
I pray that this insanity ceases but unfortunately, just like with the string of Chinese stabbing sprees against little children, I foresee copy cats.
Something tells me the killing spree of today was copy cat. It strangely follows the Oregon shooting. As if today’s shooter had decided to one-up the previous killings.
Just an impression I have.
The CT AWB is the usual joke. You can buy dozens of different M4Geries, so long as the stock is fixed or pinned, the flash suppressor is welded on (or absent) and there’s no bayonet lug.
http://www.hoffgun.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=811037&Category_Code=FEAT&Product_Count=16
All guns legal and CT AWB compliant proves Gun Bans dont work.
I will not vote in favor of a law that would require gun owners to lock up their guns. However, after the shooting at the mall and now with today’s shooting by another shooter who stole unsecured weapons to then kill innocent people I’m going to re-think my own storage measures. Currently, my guns are not secured though they are somewhat hidden away. I plan on buying some sort of safe or storage system in the near future.
My safe cost me $35 used from a gun owner who was upgrading to a large rifle safe. I have a small fireproof safe and it is also where I put my passports (dual citizen) and other important papers, including all my spare checkbooks.
It is large enough for my pistols. My Mosin (my only rifle) is hidden. But it is not really the best firearm to commit a killing spree, one has to admit.
it is not really the best firearm to commit a killing spree
It worked pretty well at Stalingrad.
people totally miss the point.
you don’t want guns around children, period.
anyone who thinks strapping a teacher is ludicrous
you don’t throw more guns at the problem, it just increases the mortality rate.
if the pro gun folks cant crack down on illegal sales and other attributes to ‘their past time’ then so be it. let the abuses of the 2nd amendment continue, and one day the obsolete and ambiguous amendment will finally be- repealed and rightfully so.
First of all, at the bottom left and right corners of your keyboard, there are some keys labeled “Shift”. Check out what they do some time. It’s actually pretty neat.
If more guns are never the solution, why do the police show up armed to these things? Why should people be forced to wait defenseless for them to show up? Why not allow them the means to defend themselves?
And repeal of the Second Amendment is a fantasy. That takes two thirds of Congress and three quarters of the state legislatures. That’s 38 states. Or to put it another way, to defend the Second Amendment, you’d only need to get 13 states to defeat repeal. As of right now, Republicans control both houses of 28 state legislatures and one house in four more. There’s no way in hell you’re getting 38 states to vote to repeal the Second Amendment.
So… your point is what exactly?
You don’t want guns around kids?
Millions of people teach kids aged 6+ to use guns responsibly everyday. They are called responsible parents.
Strapping a teacher is ludicrous?
I think any teacher that isn’t afraid of guns and knows how to handle a firearm and teaches in a hostile environment (or in a gun-free-zone) would disagree. I would certainly not feel good about teaching in a building that has no armed personnel to protect the children or myself from any random crazy person with any weapon (even their fists) that can walk right up and start hurting people without resistance.
More guns = more mortality rate?
Do you even look at the stats? That’s simply not true.
Illegal sales and “other attributes” (explain please) somehow perpetuate killing sprees?
Sorry, not true again. Crazy people cause killing sprees. I have yet to see a gun (or a knife) walk up of it’s own accord and cause a killing spree.
Educate yourself more, and then post please.
Hey, I want love and peace on earth too. Problem is the world isn’t that simple.
I don´t get this. In germany we have strict gun-controll. We also have marksmen-clubs in even the tiniest village, you can hunt, you can own a gun when you have to protect valuable proberty, such as juwerly-stores. You can carry a gun as member of a privat security company and even cub-drivers can own them. You just have to prove, you need it, you know how to handle it and your an responsible person without a criminal record.
Whats you US peoples problem with that? Somebody want´s to take away your liberty? Your 2.th. amendment-rights will be taken away faster as you can say NRA anyway.
My high school had a rifle club. OMG, guns around kids! In school! OMG!
Guess what — nobody died. Nobody got shot. Unless we died of something else, we’re all still here.
I am a gun owner and believe in the right to bear arms, however I have to question do we really need assault rifles?
Technically speaking, one of the points of the 2nd Amendment is having a “well regulated militia” that can defend the “free state” from a tyrannical government or invading forces.
To my understanding, in order to have a “well regulated” militia, it needs to have access to firearms that are current and effective against a tyrannical government that could, in theory, use it’s military against it’s citizens.
I’m not saying the militia needs to be equally armed and granted access to all military equipment, but it needs to be somewhat competitive. The point being that a tyrannical militia shouldn’t be able to overthrow the government easily either…
I personally don’t have a need or want to own an AR, but it’s nice to know I could go out and buy one if I wanted (for now).
do we really need assault rifles
And what, pray tell, is an assault rifle? If by assault rifle you mean a military rifle capable of firing in both semi-automatic and automatic modes (a machine gun), then your question is irrelevant since we don’t have them. They’ve been regulated away since 1934 and again in 1986.
If you mean a semi-automatic rifle capable of firing one shot and only one shot each time the trigger is pulled, then the answer is yes, we need them.
But the question itself is irrelevant no matter what type of gun. The government has no right to tell me what I do and do not need. Do you really need a car that can go 100 miles an hour? A house with an extra bedroom? A fireplace that pollutes the environment? A new suit made by cheap labor?
Stop telling me what you think I need. It’s none of your business.
do you need 10 mb/s internet?
or a 1000 square foot apartment?
see how stupid needs based arguments are?
Divorced parents often fall into the trap of wanting to be seen by their kids as “the fun parent” and will not discipline their kids correctly or will simply ignore problems the kids have.
This would explain her straw purchasing the guns.
I think this sad tragedy is not about guns but about the tragic, unspeakable loss of these innocent young children and the innocent adults.
If we are to claim the mantel of sanity for our opinions, we should get our priorities right. Before pressing arguments about gun ownership, we might begin by trying to understand the magnitude of this loss for every clear thinking citizen.
Our guns will not be taken away. The lives and dreams and the love of these innocents are all gone. For today, I know where my sympathy lies.
The mother was also a teacher, at a Kindergarten apparently, and she was killed at home. What kind of teacher and mother keeps an assault rifle at home?
What’s an assault rifle? It’s very easy to parrot what you’ve been trained to say.
The rifle fires one shot and only one shot each time the trigger is pulled. A revolver does the same damn thing.
“What kind of teacher and mother keeps an assault rifle at home?”
Obviously, a teacher and mother that was responsible enough to legally purchase, operate, and own a rifle. What of it?
Yes, and irresponsible enough to leave the guns available to her deranged sonny boy.
Why weren’t they in a gun safe, unavailable to the lunatic son? They may have been legally bought but they weren’t responsibly kept.
What’s your source? I haven’t heard any reports one way or another about how the guns were stored.
draw to wrong conclusions much?
you dont know those things for a fact.
Are you forgetting the mother was murdered? Did she just hand the guns over to her crazy kid? No.
Do we have evidence the guns weren’t locked up? No.
Who knows what went down. Maybe he threatened her with a knife and she refused to relinquish the guns to the lunatic (even though he was her son) and that’s why he killed her. Give the dead victim some credibility. It’s not like she was an accomplice in any sense of the word….
The fact he killed her should be enough for a reasonable person to figure out she didn’t want him to have her guns.
Yeah, or maybe mom was a gun nut FLAME DELETED and had guns all over the house readily available in case the hockey-masked rapists broke in.
way to just ignore the points and jump to your own conclusion.
way to go hero!
Remember that even in Norway, a place with strict gun control,,that lunitic got a rifle and shot down 100 people. Even with Strict Gun Control.
Therefore,,if You see something,,,Say something…
I am sure the police will find out that this guy had openly anti-social qualities.
It is this simple.If he didn’t have easy access to guns those kids would not have gotten slaughtered.
Comments are closed.