NJ Pathmark Store shooting: Gun law debate erupts.
Authorities at present are baffled by what set off a 23 year old former ex marine in this morning’s deadly shooting at a NJ Pathmark store in the town of Old Bridge which left two co workers dead as well as the gunman who turned his guns on himself.
According to employees the shooting was unprovoked and had occurred circa at 4.30 am after the gunman stormed off the premises an hour earlier.
Returning to the store he wielded an AK-47 assault rifle as well as an automatic pistol. Dressed in army camouflage gear (had the gunman equated the unfolding drama as a war scene?) the gunman barged into the store after fellow employees had attempted to barricade the store’s entrance after seeing him in the distance carrying weapons.
nydailynews: “He was a normal kid,” said Manase Acheampong, 25, who last saw the killer down the Jersey shore on the Fourth of July. “That’s why I’m shocked. I never would have guessed it in a million years.”
Pathmark worker Mike Pizoto, 17, said he recently shared a cigarette with the shooter.
“He seemed nice,” Pizoto told the News. “He didn’t seem like he would kill people. I’m shocked. I can’t believe this happened.”
Then again define nice or normal and could one wonder if this morning’s actions were the result of a young man on the verge of despair for whatever reason? Or was he simply suffering from depression or mental illness as some have begun to speculate? Then again why the need to negotiate one’s tribulations with violence, and what does this suggest about the current cultural milieu in America where so often grievances or personal conflict so often ends in ghastly violence?
