William Spengler Jr. — the man in upstate New York who ambushed four firefighters yesterday, killing two — left a three-page suicide note including this line, made public by police:
“I still have to see how much of the neighborhood I can burn down and do what I like doing best: killing people.”
Spengler, unfortunately, had experience killing people: earlier in his life, he had spent 17 years in jail for beating his grandmother to death. Police said that the note, which was described as “rambling,” didn’t reveal an explicit motive aside from a desire to “burn his neighborhood down” and murder as many people as possible.
Police also revealed that Spengler had a Bushmaster AR-15 in his possession (along with a revolver and shotgun ), which, of course, was the same gun used by Sandy Hook shooter Adam Lanza. There has not yet been any word from Bushmaster regarding the status of Spengler’s man card.
On a related note, as an ex-con, Spengler could not legally posses any guns, so police plan on tracing those guns back to their source. I’m sure the results of how a convicted murderer got his hands on a rifle that he then used to kill two volunteer firefighters will lead to significant strengthening of gun la— alright, I can’t even finish that sentence with a straight face.
While gun violence is a huge issue in this country, the state of how mental health is treated also needs to become a discussion as well. This is is just disturbing and incredibly sad.
Rest in peace to the brave firefighters.
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