TOTALLY GEEKED!

The Oregon sheriff who is running the investigation into the Roseburg college shooting is a campaigner against gun control who has lobbied the Obama administration.

Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin wrote a letter to Vice President Joe Biden one month after the Sandy Hook atrocities in January 2013, defending the right to bear arms, protected by the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

'Gun control is NOT the answer to preventing heinous crimes like school shootings,' Hanlin wrote.

He also said he would not enforce or allow any federal agents to enforce regulation enacted by Congress to further gun control.

The sheriff has refused to publicly name Chris-Harper-Mercer, the 26-year-old gunman behind the campus shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon, that killed nine, saying naming him will only give him the notoriety he sought.



'I don't want to glorify his name. I don't want to glorify his cause,' Hanlin told CNN.

In a blog post linked to him, Harper-Mercer said he relished the headlines garnered by Vester Flanagan, the man who shot dead two reporters during a live broadcast in Virginia in August before killing himself.
Authorities offered no motive for the shooting. Hanlin said local homicide detectives and federal agents were conducting an investigation.

After his bloody rampage was reported to police he was then killed in a gunfight with officers with one source saying: 'He appears to be an angry young man who was very filled with hate'.

His British father Ian Mercer, who lives in California, said: 'I'm just as shocked as everybody at what happened. I've just been talking to the police and the FBI. That's all the details I have right now, is what you know already.

He added: 'Obviously, it's been a devastating day. Devastating for me and my family'.

Posts across a host of websites also show how Harper-Mercer apparently idolized the violence of Nazi Germany and the Irish Republican Army


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Not counting Thursday's incident, 293 mass shootings have been reported this year, according to the Mass Shooting Tracker website, a crowd-sourced database kept by anti-gun activists that logs events in which four or more people are shot.

Meanwhile more details have emerged about the gunman behind America's most recent mass killing.

He wore body armor and carried three handguns and a rifle when he shot dead nine victims before being killed himself.

Witnesses said he had made his victims stand-up at gunpoint and say if they were Christian before telling them: 'Good, you'll see God in a second' and shooting them in the head. Survivors only saved their own lives by playing dead.


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Remote: The rural college is located 180 miles south of Portland, Oregon, where the gunman lived with his mother



Remote: The rural college is located 180 miles south of Portland, Oregon, where the gunman lived with his mother

'A man who was known by no one, is now known by everyone ... Seems the more people you kill, the more you're in the limelight,' the post read.

A day after the shooting, residents of the quiet former timber town struggled to comprehend the deadliest mass killing this year in the United States. The gunman also wounded a further nine people in the rampage and died in an exchange of gunfire with police.

Harper-Mercer lived with his mother in nearby Winchester and was described as 'lonely' and 'skittish' by neighbors.



He stormed into a classroom at the college that serves mostly older students in career transitions, shot a professor at point-blank range, then ordered cowering students to stand up and state their religion before he shot them one by one, according to survivors' accounts.

Oregon Governor Kate Brown declined in television interviews on Friday morning to discuss gun control, as did the sheriff, and said it was a time for healing the community.



Just hours after Thursday's shooting, a visibly angry President Barack Obama urged Americans to press their elected leaders to enact tougher firearms safety laws.

'Somehow this has become routine. The reporting is routine. My response here, at this podium, ends up being routine,' he said. 'We've become numb to this.'


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3257645/Gun-control-NOT-answer-preventing-school-shootings-Oregon-sheriff-center-Roseburg-college-killings-known-anti-gun-control-campaigner.html#ixzz3nQoJHH7R
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