Georgia police look for information regarding the school shooter’s motivation and access to a gun

On Thursday, investigators in Georgia endeavored to determine the manner in which an adolescent acquired the assault rifle that he employed to conduct a mass shooting at his school and whether there were any additional warning signs following a visit to his home by authorities a year ago.

The student, Colt Gray, 14, used an AR platform-style weapon to open fire at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia on Wednesday. The attack resulted in the deaths of two students and two teachers, as well as the injuries of nine others, according to law enforcement officials.

According to investigators, Gray was interrogated by law enforcement last year after he made online threats regarding the execution of a school shooting. His father, who was also interviewed, informed officials that he had hunting firearms in the house, but his son did not have access to them.

Investigators investigating the United States’ first mass campus shooting since the commencement of the academic year are concentrating on the shooter’s capacity to acquire the semiautomatic rifle, any indications that he intended to carry out a shooting, and his motivation.

Gray was apprehended shortly after the incident. According to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, he will be accused and tried as an adult.

According to Glenn Allen, the communications director for the Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice, Gray was being held without parole at the Gainesville Regional Youth Detention Center on Thursday.

His arraignment is scheduled for Friday before a Barrow County, Georgia Superior Court judge via video.

The victims were identified by officials as two 14-year-old students, Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, and two instructors, Christina Irimie, 53, and Richard Aspinwall, 39. MSNBC reported on Thursday that eight students and one instructor who were injured in the attack were still hospitalized.

In a nation where such assaults are not uncommon, the shooting reignited the national discourse on gun control and the subsequent outpouring of sorrow.

A prayer vigil was held in a park in Winder, a city of 18,000 located approximately 50 miles (80 km) northeast of Atlanta, on Wednesday evening.

According to David Riedman, the administrator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, the shooting was the initial premeditated assault on a school this autumn. Many students in the United States are returning to school this week, while Apalachee students returned to school last month.

In the past two decades, the United States has experienced numerous shootings within schools and institutions, with the most severe, which resulted in over 30 fatalities, occurring at Virginia Tech in 2007. The heated debate regarding gun laws and the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees the right to “keep and bear arms,” has been further exacerbated by the carnage.