Another Day Another Mass Killing — 5 Dead in New Mexico

This story is still in the first stages of being reported so I’d expect some details to change.  Here is what is being said now.

Near Albuquerque, New Mexico

A 15 year old boy has shot and killed his mother and father, and three younger siblings.

All had multiple gunshot wounds.

He was planning to drive to nearby Walmart and shoot others, then himself.

The guns were in his father’s unlocked closet, and included an AR-15

The boy had no prior involvement with juvenile justice.

He and his siblings were home schooled.

His father was a chaplain to local fire fighters and a former pastor of a megachurch, in which there has been a good deal of controversy in recent year.  And more, here.

So, NRA, how would your proposals fit here?  Or perhaps, since this is a family killing, you would say it’s not to be included in ‘what can be done.’   I do wonder who might have been the ‘good guy’ stationed with a gun who might have prevented this.  Perhaps if the mother, the first killed, had jerked a pistol from under her pillow when first confronted in her bed only the teenager would have been shot and the others.  Who knows?  Following NRA fantasies anything at all might have happened.

Unlocked closet?  Guns?  Semi-automatic?  Plenty of bullets?  A boy, who some say, had had violent murder-suicide fantasies for some time.  Did his parents, who believed in home schooling, ever engage him with others?

Much to know still.  One thing is clear to me, that without those guns, whatever urges he had, the outcome would have been different, and the killings fewer.