Reaping the Whirlwind

This is not the result of guns, pellet guns, or failure to make pellet guns look less lethal (pellet guns most certainly can be lethal)... this is a result of a poorly disciplined child... This sort of thing never happened until recently, you'll note. Hey, I'm just heading that one off at the pass. There will be handwringing over what could have been done to stop this, how the cops could have done better and all that.
Make no mistake, the blame ultimately lies with one person: Christopher Penley. He had choice in what he did. However, some blame does lie with his parents, I'll bet. Some also lies with our education system, as this is the result of moral relativism (what's right for me is not what's right for you; right and wrong are realtive), the result of poor discipline, and the result of a world where there are too few hard consequeces.
Now, looking on another part of the page, perhaps this kid was suicidal (pointing anything at a cop without failing to kill him or her is a great way to get youself killed). That does actually lead to some interesting things, like why on God's green earth a kid so young would be suicidal, but we still end up with the fact that he had no regard for other people... a sign that he was morally compromised. Such people, when they fail to attract the attentions of law enforcement at an early age do so later in life, gereraly in a more spectacular manner.

The punk got what he had coming.

Please, may nobody turn this into an equipment issue, though I know somebody will because it is easier to do that than to confront the darkness and evil of the untamed human soul. This kid would have killed himself or others regarless of what kinds of props he had lying around. The only thing that would have stopped him was a change of heart.