Ii would take a significantly more amount of commitment and intestinal fortitude to do this with a knife. This was not a physically easy task to see through to completion. It would appear that he had some how gained prior knowledge of the home and occupants, as others have rightly mentioned. Having dealt with uncooperative patients for thirty plus years (a small percentage thank the Lord), whom we were there to aid, I can’t get my mind around the chaos that took place in that home when someone is trying to kill four people. You can have a patient that is moderately sedated (as would be the case with alcohol), and even with the slightest stimulation, their fight or flight system can overcome what you have given them as if it was nothing. Without a doubt, once adrenaline kicked in, these young ladies had the ability to make this difficult, not to mention the young man. If this was a first time kill I would be amazed, because this was a difficult, heinous task. Not one that in my opinion could be accomplished by a first time offender.
I agree w your line of thinking ---
using a knife to kill four people in a home would take
"significantly more amount of commitment and intestinal fortitude" than firing a handgun. Hard to imagine the chaos either way.
Bless you for having patience w uncooperative patients who did not see you as being there to help them.
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BTW, not sure whether ^ post as a whole was agreeing or disagreeing w my earlier comment.
My post responded to a question about whether perp's use of knife could indicate something about a perp's
ability to acquire handgun.
My post merely pointed out that a perp - if
planning to kill - may have seen
disadvantages of using gun, e.g., noise and unwanted attention of close by neighbors. Nevertheless may have had one at crime scene to intimidate.
Also whether fed. background check* would have prevented perp from buying handgun thru a firearms dealer. If so, a perp may not have let a pesky technicality like the NICS check get in the way. Maybe beg, borrow, or steal gun, instead of buying legally???? IDK.
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*
en.wikipedia.org