fatal parental blunders.

About a year before,the Kinkels discovered Kip was downloading bomb-making instructions from the internet and building bombs, said Kim Scott, a best friend of Kip's sister, Kristin. "They tried to discipline him and they tried to keep him from making more bombs, but at some point, Kristin said, they pretty much had given up on being able to control him." Friends of the family said the parents knew of the son's penchant for making bombs. Bill - his father - bought the guns used in the killings as a way to divert his son's obsession with weapons into a supervised hobby. They even hired an anger-management counsellor who clearly had no success with the junior Charlie Manson.

The parents of Kipland Kinkel, the boy accused of the Springfield shootings, were not gun enthusiasts, but their son was, according to interviews with family friends. The parents agonized over the boy's gun obsession, finally giving in and buying him a weapon. The father and son took courses in marksmanship and safety, and the guns were kept under lock and key.

But given Kip Kinkel's moods and temper, the parents had debated over whether to get him a single-loading bolt-action weapon or something with more rapid-fire capability. They settled on the more powerful gun, a .22-caliber semiautomatic Ruger rifle. It was a fatal mistake, according to some people who studied the shootings. It was that rifle Kip used to fire off 50 rounds at Thurston High School.