Man who killed two N.Y. firefighters left chilling note
Two firefighters were shot dead and two others remain hospitalized. One of the weapons recovered was a .233-caliber semiautomatic Bushmaster rifle with flash suppression, the same make and caliber gun used in the elementary school massacre in Newtown, Conn.
WEBSTER, New York (AP) — Police have found human remains in the burned-out home of the New York state ex-convict who killed two firefighters and believe the victim is the gunman's sister.
The ex-con who lured firefighters to their deaths in a blaze of gunfire left a typewritten note saying he wanted to burn down the neighborhood and "do what I like doing best, killing people," police said Tuesday.
Two firefighters were shot dead and two others are hospitalized. Spengler killed himself as seven houses burned around him Monday on a narrow spit of land along Lake Ontario.
One of the weapons recovered was a .233-caliber semiautomatic Bushmaster rifle with flash suppression, the same make and caliber gun used in the elementary school massacre in Newtown, Conn., Pickering said.
I don't know if William Spengler timed his planned ambush of the town's firefighters and emergency responders to make grizzly headlines on Christmas day. The undisclosed portions of the 2 page letter Spengler left behind may shed some light on his motives.
The fact is when it comes to gun violence Christmas Eve is just another day in armed America. There are over three million Bushmaster and other AR-15 derivatives in circulation across the US. Then add millions more the AK-47 derivatives to this pool of highly efficient killing machines known as semiautomatic weapons.
With many millions of these efficient killing machines in circulation is inevitable that a number of them end up in the hands of disturbed individuals with urges to lash out at innocent others and society at large.
I don't care if the US had the worlds most effective mental health system (obviously we don't) with this many of these highly effective weapons in circulation a number of them are bound to end up in the wrong hands.
Yes it it the shockingly destructive potential of these weapons themselves that are an essential ingredient in the pattern of these abhorrent slaughters. We can't address this intolerable pattern without doing something about the readily available supply of these highly efficient killing machines that have saturated our society.