A family in Albuquerque is dead, and we're lucky it wasn't worse, much worse.
From the Albuquerque Journal:
Nehemiah Griego had long harbored violent fantasies that included mass killings and murder-suicide scenarios.
More recently, those fantasies started to crystallize into a specific plan to kill his family, his girlfriend’s family and even strangers at a local Walmart, Bernalillo County Sheriff Dan Houston and one of his lead investigators said Tuesday.
According to sheriff’s investigators, the 15-year-old followed through with part of the plan early Saturday, when they say he fatally shot his mother and younger brother in bed, his two young sisters in another room and then waited five hours to ambush his father in the family’s South Valley home. ...
The victims are: Greg Griego, 51; Sarah Griego, 40; Zephania Griego, 9; Jael Griego, 5; and Angelina Griego, 2.
The guns were unsecured in the parent's closet.
Officials said the two guns used in the killings, as well as two pistol-grip 12-gauge shotguns found in the Griegos’ home, had been purchased legally. It is not clear, however, who bought them.
[Bernalillo County Sheriff's Office Lt. Sid] Covington said it appears some of the guns owned by [the shooter's father] Greg Griego – including possibly those used in the killings – had been purchased by Greg Griego’s friends and then either sold to or given to the pastor. BCSO is working with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to trace the history of those guns, as well as the two shotguns.
Griego had told friends, colleagues and inmates he worked with that he was an ex-con and had done prison time. That raised the question of how he obtained the guns.
This is why so many Americans, especially those with children, don't own firearms and don't want to be around people who do. The shooter's girlfriend's family and customers at the local WalMart were going to be the young shooter's next victims showing just how much harm one family with guns and a child with murder-suicidal fantasies can unleash on an unsuspecting society. And don't give me that crap about how an armed citizenry would prevent or reduce the carnage of lunatic shooters. That is pure fantasy. Ironically we hear far more stories of unarmed citizens tackling and/or disarming shooters then we hear of an armed citizen shooting the shooter.
Get real America!
--Trakker

Do the math
It's not beyond any human reasoning or understanding.
1) Weapons + 2) motivation = 3
3 - 1 = ?
Posted by: horsec | January 24, 2013 at 05:32 PM
Yup, no doubt the presence of guns in the house contributed to the death toll, and had the potential a much higher death toll. The kids could have killed some of his family with a knife, but not everyone.
Posted by: Trakker | January 25, 2013 at 10:49 AM