SoCal high school mass shooting

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Was he a Trump supporter?

Investigators are still trying to determine why a 16-year-old Saugus High School student allegedly opened fire in the campus quad Thursday, killing two classmates and injuring three others before turning the gun on himself.

However, authorities say that at this point, they do not believe the shooter targeted specific students.

A school surveillance camera recorded the violence, investigators said. The gunman apparently knew how many shots he had fired and reserved the final bullet for himself, Villanueva said.

It was all over too quickly for anyone to intervene, although law enforcement was on the scene within minutes.

Friends and neighbors were stunned, saying the teen suspected in the shooting showed no signs of aggression. He ran junior varsity cross-country and helped younger members in his Boy Scout troop.

“He would have fun with the team and was a good kid,” 11th-grader Aidan Soto said. “The younger Scouts really looked up to him. He was there when they needed him with anything. I’m bewildered and looking for answers.”

Brooke Risley, a 16-year-old junior at Saugus High, has known the teen since elementary school. Last year, the two were together in a group for their engineering class and grew to become close friends.

“He was very smart and really good at history,” she said.

In AP European history class, she said, he would help her study and would often get the highest test scores in the class. She said the teen often planned Boy Scout trips during their free time in class last year.

“He was pretty funny too,” she said. “He had a higher-level type of humor that often I couldn’t even get the joke cause it was above my head.”

When word began to spread, a friend reached out and let her know. In shock, she began texting a mutual friend.

“Please tell me it’s not Nathaniel,” she said.

“I heard that too,” he responded. “I don’t want to believe it.”

A senior in their class last year reached out to her Friday, asking whether it was the same Nathaniel who was on their group project “because he couldn’t believe he would do this,” Risley said.

“Everyone who has heard about him being the shooter has said this wasn’t typically him,” she said. “All those who know him are really wondering what the motive was.”

Public records and a high-ranking law enforcement source indicated signs of trouble at home.

His family life in Santa Clarita was upended by his father’s sudden death in December 2017, acquaintances said. More recently, a source told The Times that the boy — a high academic achiever — was having problems with his girlfriend, who was his emotional anchor.

The teen’s father, Mark Berhow, was arrested for driving under the influence in 2013 and 2015 and pleaded no contest twice. The second time, he was sentenced to 45 days in jail and five years’ probation.

According to jail records, he was also booked in 2015 on suspicion of attempted battery of a spouse. The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office declined to file charges in that case, citing insufficient evidence.

A judge granted physical custody of the boy to his mother in August 2016, even though both parents still appeared to live in the family’s small ranch home on Sycamore Creek Drive.

“He would tell me that he missed his father and that he loved him,” said neighbor Jared Axen, 33.

Witnesses described Nathaniel as quiet, smart, somewhat introverted, and open with his close friends; that he wasn't bullied, had a girlfriend, and had been an active member of a local Boy Scout troop;[/color]

Note the past tense. Alcohol was banned in the US, and all that did was tremendously increase the wealth and power of the criminal gangs that could keep supplying people with alcohol. It made for incredibly violent times.

London has strict rules around firearms, how are they doing on knife crime?

It's a false comparison. According to medical research access to moderate levels of alcohol increase longevity
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog ... qually-bad

Access to guns simply increases vicarious danger to the community if the gun owner has a mental breakdown. Guns do not make a person safer...
https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... nce-shows/

had he not had access to guns he could have quietly left the earth....

That may very well be, though I have seen some research that contests that idea. That's beside the point though, because my point was that banning guns is very unlikely to make them go away, especially the guns you'd want to go away.

safety is only one aspect of gun ownership. The shooters father was a hunter, was he not? Or are you trying to say that no one ever has a legitimate need for a gun?

Do you suppose picking up a gun is what gave him the idea of killing other people before killing himself? If suicide was his objective, he could've just shot himself without shooting anyone else. And had he not had access to guns, there is no assurance whatsoever that he wouldn't have used a car, a bomb, poison, a knife, a 2x4 or any number of readily available options for someone out to kill people.

It's a false comparison. According to medical research access to moderate levels of alcohol increase longevity
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog ... qually-bad

Access to guns simply increases vicarious danger to the community if the gun owner has a mental breakdown. Guns do not make a person safer...
https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... nce-shows/

You suggested that it was the gun that gave him the intent to kill others before himself. I posited that, for whatever reason, the intent was there before he picked up a gun, and had the gun been unavailable I'm not convinced "but that's more effort" would've been enough to cancel his plans. And I have a feeling that "slipping away into the darkness" wasn't part of his plan, here.

Except the 500-3million people saved by guns every year.