This morning I learned the shooter in this case 1s 17 years of age.
That is not a 'kid', that is a man.
That is a man old enough to join the military with parental permission. That is a man old enough to hold a full time job. That is a man old enough to complete high school and start college. It is certainly a man old enough to know right from wrong, and adhere to the 'right'. Surely you were mature enough at 17 to know something like this would be wrong - probably knew it then just as surely as you know it now.
He will tell police where he got the gun, and hopefully it will turn out that no one actually gave it to him or let him take it. The gun should have been secured, but again, this is a man and he is old enough he would have known better than to do what he did, anyway. Seems he was detrmined, for some reason known to him, to kill these victims. Seems he walked into the cafeteria and over to a certain table and started shooting certain people. He had some 'reason' to do that. It wasn't the gun who killed these students, it was that 17 year old man.
This entire episode is indeed a tragedy as is any event during which innocents die, regardless of the cause of their death. It is misplaced to become indignant and blame a gun. It is incorrect to blame gun laws. It is appropriate to blame the shooter. He made the decision to walk in that room and pulll that trigger.
It might be appropriate to blame his parent(s), at least partially, as my understanding is he was living with his grandmother which would usually indicate there was a problem or problem(s) that somehow prevented him from being raised in a normal, two-parent home with loving parents.
It would also be appropriate to prosecute any adult who is found to have given him or otherwise been responsible for him having this gun. That would have been a crime under present laws, as was his possessing the firearm and also him taking it on school property and for shooting these students.
This young man's life is ruined. That too is a tragedy. But like so many other young men today, he made the decisions he made, and he did the things he did. He now has to live with that, and will most likely be in prison for a long, long while, as he should be.
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