Marco,

I feel for your son. I too have experienced a gun related hold up/mugging at Ohio State (just off campus) in 1980. I can relate to your son's feelings. Unless you have looked down the barrel of a gun, it is hard to explain and I am sure different for each person. For me, I did not make eye contact with the robber and gave up my wallet without a second thought. I was in college so there wasnt much money in it and other than my student ID and drivers license, my wallet or my life was an easy split second choice. But I never thought it was a motive-less incident, it was a robbery. That is a piss-poor motive, but a motive nevertheless.

Several people have made comments about this tragedy being a "robbery gone bad" when there is no proof of that. Some keep doing that even when the police do not state that as the motive. Chrispy asked directly why the police are not stating that motive. Obviously there is a disconnect for some between fact and speculation.

In your previous comment you mention Kevin's post "suggest that the couple was involved in some bad things". For one thing, it was not a couple but three people involved, and you are making the leap that Kevin was suggesting something nefarious. To me, Kevin was responding to the repeated comments about this being a "robbery gone bad" when the facts at this time do not indicate such a motive.

So for Kevin to point out that gun violence rarely is random, that may open our visitors mind to the fact there may be more to the story and that we do not know all the facts yet. Knowledge is power. Having blinders on and blindly believing speculation is not power. It is the opposite of power.

I cannot remember any gun violence here that has been purely random in nature. There has always been some motive, no matter however stupid or meaningless it may be. Since you cannot list an act of random gun violence other than robbery motives, it would seem Kevin's statement is supported by your comment.

Random acts of gun violence are extremely rare. They may even be non-existent by definition. It takes a person to knowingly pick up a loaded gun and knowingly shooting it in a way intended to harm others. The victim may be random, but the motive is not random.

Other than gun accidents, such as accidental discharge when cleaning or dropping a loaded gun or a person or child getting hold of loaded weapon without knowing it, I cannot think of a case of a random shooting at all. But that would not be considered an act of gun violence, but a unfortunate accident.

As I have stated, since there has been no arrest yet, which would necessitate a motive of one form or another, no one can state what the motive was at this point.

Lets all wait until the police make a statement backed up by official news media confirmation before making comments about the motive behind this tragic event.