.
12/15/12, "Mom of suspected school shooter -- first to die -- was avid gun enthusiast, friend says," NBC News, by Michael Isikoff and Hannah Rappleye
"The mother of the suspected Sandy Hook Elementary School gunman,
herself slain at the outset of the murderous rampage, was an avid gun
enthusiast who liked to take her sons to the shooting range to practice
their marksmanship, a friend tells NBC News.
Dan Holmes, a local
landscaper and a friend of Nancy Lanza, mother of 20-year-old suspected
gunman Adam Lanza, said she also was a collector.
“She had a
pretty extensive gun collection,” Holmes said. “She was a collector, she
was pretty proud of that. She always mentioned that she really loved
the act of shooting.”
Holmes recalled that she said she was able to “focus in” while shooting.
Federal officials tell NBC News that Adam Lanza took three weapons
with him to the school – two pistols, a Glock and a Sig Sauer, and a
Bushmaster .223-caliber semi-automatic assault-style rifle – all of
which were registered to Nancy Lanza.
It is unclear whether all
the guns were used in the attack. At a news briefing on Saturday, Chief
Medical Examiner Dr. H. Wayne Carver II, who led the team that autopsied
the victims, said, “All the (injuries) … I know of were caused by the rifle.”
The
Associated Press reported that authorities investigating the school
shooting later recovered additional weapons -- a Henry repeating rifle,
an Enfield rifle and a shotgun. It was not clear where those weapons
were found.
Holmes, Nancy Lanza’s friend, said the 47-year-old single mother also frequently talked about how she was worried about Adam.
She talked about “how he was an unstable kid,” he said. “She would talk
about that. “She was very protective of him. I don’t … think she ever
got major help for him. She just tried to handle it on her own. It was
something she was definitely disturbed about.”
Meantime, federal agents visited a gun shooting range near Newtown,
Conn., in an effort determine if Adam Lanza visited in the months before
the attack, which could indicate he was planning or practicing for the
bloodbath he carried out early Friday.
Dean Price, director of the
Wooster Mountain Shooting Range near Newtown, told NBC News that he was
visited by agents from the federal Bureau of Alcohol ,Tobacco, Firearms
and Explosives on Friday night and that they searched through his
records for any evidence that the younger Lanza had signed in there in
2012. They also checked to see if he had used the name of his older
brother, Ryan, Price said.
There was no indication that Adam Lanza
had used the shooting range, which requires customers to sign in and
show identification prior to using the facility, Price said.
Agents
also have been checking local firearms dealers to see if Adam Lanza
purchased or attempted to purchase weapons or ammunition prior to the
shooting.
Law enforcement officials said members of the public reported they
thought they saw Adam Lanza trying to buy a rifle at a Dick’s Sporting
Good store in Danbury, but investigators have yet to confirm that."
--------------------------------------
Guns were legally owned and registered to the mother:
12/14/12, "Gunman's mother owned weapons used in Connecticut school massacre," NBC News
"The weapons used in Friday’s shooting
at Sandy Hook Elementary School in
Newtown, Conn., were legally purchased and registered to Nancy Lanza,
the mother of the gunman, Adam Lanza."...
.
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