Carney, other leaders to mourn victims at site of Canada mass shooting

The Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights, a pro-gun lobby group, questioned why weapons had been returned to a house where a person with mental illness was living.

“The firearms were seized out of that home for good reason, if you look down the list of the warning signs … the perpetrator should not have had access to firearms,” chief executive officer Rod Giltaca told CTV News.

“So my question for the RCMP is – how did they get guns in their proximity?”

The mass shooting was one of the worst in Canadian history. The deadliest took place in April 2020 when a 51-year-old man killed 22 people in Nova Scotia, before police shot him dead.

Few townspeople wanted to speak to media on Thursday and British Columbia police said families and friends of the victims had requested privacy.

Police named the school victims as Abel Mwansa, 12, Ezekiel Schofield, 13, Kylie Smith, 12, Zoey Benoit, 12, Ticaria Lampert, 12, as well as teacher Shannda Aviugana-Durand, 39.

Lampert’s mother Sarah, speaking to reporters on Thursday, described her daughter as a “blazing light in the darkness … (who) just wanted to bring sunshine to everyone and everything she ever touched.”