The 18-year-old male and 16-year-old female who allegedly carried out the school shooting in Colorado on May 7 obtained their guns by smashing into the locked gun cabinet in the house of the older suspect’s parents.
Devon Erickson, the male, and Maya McKinney, the female, took the guns on Tuesday morning, just hours before the attack, a high-ranking source told local broadcaster KGMH.
Sources told the broadcaster that the parents of Erickson bought the weapons legally. People under age 21 aren’t allowed to purchase handguns in Colorado, a left-leaning state.
Gun control groups have already been using the shooting in their push for stricter gun laws, prompting students from the STEM Highlands Ranch School, where the shooting occurred, to walk out of a vigil on Wednesday.
The parents of Erickson seemed to follow safe gun storage guidance. According to the Boulder County government website, gun owners are recommended to keep firearms locked up or have gun safety locks for them. The government also recommends that ammunition be kept in a separate place.
While law enforcement officials haven’t officially disclosed the suspected motive in the shooting, sources said that the alleged shooters wanted to exact revenge on their classmates and were angry at people at the school.
A review of McKinney’s Twitter page before it was taken down, showed that she posted multiple missives expressing anger at people at her school. Friends of the girl and Erickson said they both struggled with mental health issues and that McKinney was upset that people identified her as a girl despite her preference to be known as a boy.
“‘Nothing that Alec and Devon did can be condoned, and they can’t be defended. Their actions were terrible. But Alec is not a girl,” one friend wrote on her Instagram story, reported the Daily Mail.
“Devon did not do what he did because he’s a liberal, or to make a statement. He did it due to internal struggles. They’re both struggling with mental health issues and this is a time for awareness.”
The friend claimed that the suspects didn’t shoot their classmates “out of hatred toward others” but “it was hate in themselves.”
Two other friends tried to place blame on others as well.
“Anyone can do the unthinkable when pushed too far. I am by no means trying to condone his actions, I’m trying to get the point across that this could happen to anyone and that we all need to make sure we help or friends/family personally,” another friend wrote.
Claiming to be a gender different from the one you were born as, or being transgender, was until June 2018 classified as a mental illness by the World Health Organization.
Some 41 percent of those who believe they’re transgender attempt suicide in the United States, a much higher rate than the general population (4.6 percent), according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and the Williams Institute (pdf). “Since 2001, over a dozen separate surveys of transgender adults in the United States and other countries have found lifetime suicide attempts to be reported by 25-43 percent of respondents,” the researchers wrote.
