The latest intensely depressing entry in the American volume of school shooters — the 74th since Sandy Hook — is Jared Michael Padgett, 15. Authorities said today that the freshman used an AR-15 rifle, which he took from his family home, to shoot and kill one student in the boy’s locker room before grazing a teacher. The victim, Emilio Hoffman, was 14. Padgett had taken the bus to school Tuesday morning carrying a duffel bag and a guitar case, also containing a non-ballistic vest, a camo helmet, a handgun, and a knife.
Although gunfire was exchanged with responding officers, an autopsy said Padgett died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He had with him “nine loaded magazines with the capability of holding several hundred rounds.”
“I had so many classes with you since 7th grade,” wrote a fellow student on Padgett’s Facebook wall. “We were always talking about guns.”