Police in Tampa, Fla. have arrested 50-year-old mother Julie Schenecker for the murder of her two children. "She [told] us that they talked back and they were mouthy," said a police spokeswoman.

Scheneker was apparently depressed. She'd written an email to her mother the week before, complaining of depression and trouble with the kids. She was nonetheless able to purchase a gun that same week, intending to kill her 13-year-old son and 16-year-old daughter and then herself. On Thursday, she shot her son, Powers Beau Schenecker, in the car on the way home from soccer practice; she then shot her daughter Calyx while she was doing her homework in her room.

The next morning, police, who had been contacted by Schenecker's mother, found her at her house, still wearing her blood-stained clothing. She told them she killed her son "for talking back to her" in the car. In custody, she "shook uncontrollably" and "mumbled to herself."

This isn't the first time this year someone who shouldn't have been in possession of a firearm was able to obtain one without any trouble. But please, don't politicize this tragedy, which has nothing to do with how absurdly easy it is for people to purchase guns in this country, or the frustratingly small number of people with serious depression or other mental illness who receive appropriate or adequate treatment. No, it's an isolated incident. Just like the rest of them.

[Tampa Bay Tribune]