Albuquerque shooting leaves five dead

In New Mexico, five people are dead in what appears to be a family shooting. Just two months removed from the Sandy Hook massacre, an assault rifle is involved in another deadly shooting. Five people, including three elementary school age children, were found dead in their home outside Albuquerque on Sunday. The sheriff of Bernalillo County, Dan Houston, believes the main suspect to be a 15 year old boy who may or may not be a family member.

To me, it sounds like a teenager killing his two younger brothers and one younger sister, and then both of his parents. I have to wonder how somebody his age was able to acquire such a high caliber weapon. Assault rifles have been at the forefront of the argument against gun control lately, so this could be another example of why they need to be made much harder to get. Perhaps the gun was his father's. Either way, it seems like the problem here was that the boy had some serious issues with his family, and I think that schools, pediatricians, and especially parents need to make sure kids like this don't fall into this same dangerous path. Perhaps conversation and nonviolent conflict resolution should be stressed more in America's schools. On the other hand, we often see murders like this where people who knew the killer said he or she never showed any signs of being disturbed or being unstable in any way. It appears we need to diagnose troubled children, teens, and young adults sooner so we can more quickly get them the help they need to prevent more senseless violent crimes like the one in this article.

Do you think the problem is the availability of guns to teenagers, or adults close to the shooter not being able to get him help soon enough? Let me know in the comments.