What will the NRA say?

Yet another detail about the Newtown gunman is now in question.

Fox News last night quoted the son of a local pastor saying, “Adam Lanza may have snapped after learning his mother wanted to send him to a psychiatric facility.”

But then the NY Daily News quoted the pastor himself as saying his son’s statement was hearsay and shouldn’t be used.

So this story continues to be all over the place. This scramble for some explanation to cling to is distracting from what we DO know for sure, which is that Adam Lanza’s mother kept a military weapon at home that he used to kill 26 innocent people.

And the mom obviously never dreamed such a thing could happen — because no one believes this of their own child, and if they did, they would make sure such a weapon never got into the house.

We also know that whatever his motive was, his access to a military weapon turned a family crisis into a national tragedy.

Which means there’s a pretty clear choice if we decide as a nation to do something: either you control the weapons or the people who own and possess them.

We’re told the NRA will finally speak on Friday. I hope they address the question of what we have a right to expect of people who own weapons. The NRA’s Eddie Eagle program tells kids what to do if they find a gun in Mommy or Daddy’s closet, “There’s a gun up here I heard Josh say,” the cartoon voice sings. “That’s when I knew this was no place to play.”

It’s reassuring to think that kids will do the right thing and go dancing to their parents when they find a gun in the closet. But someone needs to ask why any parent would leave that weapon unsecured in the first place.