First, an update on the tragedy in Marysville. As Allahpundit warned yesterday, early reporting on such a breaking news story is rarely reliable, and many of the initial claims from people on the scene turned out to be distorted or false. But as more details emerge, the pictures begins to come clear. The shooter, tentatively identified as Jaylen Fryberg, killed one student and gravely injured several others before taking his own life during a struggle with a teacher who tried to stop him. Two of the victims were apparently relatives of the shooter, assumed to be cousins.

As to motive, assuming we ever find out anything substantial, there are competing theories of his either being upset over the fact that a girl wouldn’t go out with him or having recently been in a fight where slurs about his Native American heritage were invoked.

Fryberg brought a semi-automatic .40-caliber Beretta for his grisly task and was going for head shots at point blank range, so the carnage is what you would expect. Not all of the surviving students are out of the woods yet according to local hospital spokesmen.

As near as we can tell from the timeline, the shooting took place at roughly 1:45 p.m. eastern time (10:45 a.m. local). It took a while for the media to not only catch on, but to verify and go live, so it was closer to 2:30 p.m. eastern when the story really began to explode on cable news and social media. It was at 2:33 p.m. when Sam Stein tweeted this.

by the way, there are two background check measures on the ballot in Washington this year http://t.co/JPgg945I9f

— Sam Stein (@samsteinhp) October 24, 2014

Washington State already has some fairly hefty gun rights restrictions on the books, though nowhere near as bad as their neighbors in Oregon or those in New York. Watching the news this morning, there are mentions of the gun control angle, but they seem rather muted, particularly on CNN. That’s probably because the early reports – remembering Allahpundit’s caveat above – are that the handgun was legally owned and licensed to the shooter’s father. And if that is true, then no amount of additional background checks, waiting periods, or anything short of an all out handgun ban would have prevented this.

Whether or not the mental health angle comes into this incident may never be known. There are no indications thus far that the kid was setting off any red flag warnings in the weeks leading up to this. And if we banned guns in the relatively close vicinity of every teenage boy who ever had girl problems or got in a fight outside of school, there would be about five guns left in the nation. (Don’t get any ideas, liberals.)

None of that will matter in certain rings of the media circus, however. Be prepared for the next round of demands for new restrictions which once again would have done nothing to change this awful event. And this one at CNN took less than 14 hours to show up.