Oregon Shooter's Mother Kept Firearms and Read Donald Trump's Book to Son
Laurel Harper—the mother of gunman Chris Harper-Mercer who murdered nine people at Umpqua Community College last week—is not only an active and passionate gun owner, but an active and passionate fan of Donald Trump, according to a Yahoo Answers account uncovered by The New York Times.
Harper’s account, which has since been set to private, contains almost 34,000 answers amassed over a period of ten years, “mostly answering medical questions from strangers, occasionally citing her own difficulties raising a troubled child.” Some of these included answers in which she would cite an (unnamed) son with Asperger’s syndrome who had been “among other things, a head-banger” but was “very intelligent” and now in college.
In one piece of advice for parents with autistic children, Harper wrote of her affinity for Donald Trump:
Fact: Before my son was even born, I was reading out loud to him from Donald Trump’s The Art of the Deal. And as for the “gesture effect,” I was practically a mime. And now my son invests in the stock market along with me, turns a profit and is working on a degree in finance. His language and reading skills are phenomenal.
Harper also wrote of her considerable affinity for firearms. From The New York Times:
Answering a question about state gun laws several years ago, Ms. Harper, a registered nurse, took a jab at “lame states” that impose limits on keeping loaded firearms in the home, and noted that she had AR-15 and AK-47 semiautomatic rifles, along with a Glock handgun. She also indicated that her son, who lived with her, was well versed in guns, citing him as her source of information on gun laws, saying he “has much knowledge in this field.”
“I keep two full mags in my Glock case. And the ARs & AKs all have loaded mags,” Harper wrote in one answer. “No one will be ‘dropping’ by my house uninvited without acknowledgement.”
