Parents of Sparks Middle School shooter apologize to victims’ families:

The parents of Jose Reyes recently spoke to the Reno Journal-Gazette in the wake of their son shooting and killing teacher Michael Landsberry, wounding two other students before taking his own life. They apologized to the families of the victims and thanked the police. I’m not going to be as hard as them as I have on the parents of other shooters in the past because it takes guts to actually apologize like this, something that the parents of more prolific killers have never done. Unfortunately they don’t get a total pass because it’s still alleged that the gun their sun used came from their home. I would say that a majority of shootings like this could be prevented if parents stored their firearms more securely.

The article briefly touches on something that other media outlets have run with as their headlines. This is all that’s mentioned about bullying in the article.

We knew that he had been teased and that he was trying to work through a speech problem that he had.

And as it’s been pointed out before the two students that he shot were not his alleged tormentors, a theme that seems to be recurring with school shootings.

However there may be a legitimate reason behind his speech issue and the alleged bullying. In 2012 Jose Reyes’ father was arrested for hitting his son three times with an open hand giving his son a black eye. Growing up in an abusive household, especially if you’re the target of the abuse, can cause a lot of mental issues in children.

When I was Jose’s age my dad would not hesitate to hit my mom. He blackened her eyes and sent her to the hospital on more occasions than I care to remember. This made me timid and scared of just about everything since I lived in such fear of my father. School kids can smell fear as the saying goes and they prey upon it. In my house there was a rule of never talking about the abuse and I carried that into school. So I never talked about the abuse I took at school. This led to more than one suicide attempt. However much like suicide attempts, school shootings should be contributed more to mental illness than the bogeyman of bullying. My dad’s abuse of my mom had more of an adverse effect on me than any bullying did and it probably caused the depression I’ve suffered since I was young. Maybe Jose Reyes’ real bully was his own father.

UPDATE 11/14/203: This is actually kind of old news but Jose Reyes’ father allegedly said that the gun used in the shooting was kept on a shelf above the refrigerator but was not locked. I’ve lost count of how many shootings at schools could have been prevented by a simple gun lock.

Gun locks are easy and inexpensive. In some municipalities they’re given out free to gun owners. If you have kids in your house gun locks should at least be a minimum requirement of you own guns.