Oregon gunman had 13 weapons

Harper-Mercer was officially identified on Friday as the assailant who survivors said stormed into the classroom of his introductory writing class on Thursday and shot the professor at point-blank range, before picking off other victims one at a time as he questioned each about their religion and whether they were Christians.

The authorities also discovered that the suspected perpetrator, identified as Chris Harper Mercer, 26, was in possession of 14 firearms and not 13, as at first reported.

Hanlin said a medical examiner confirmed the shooter’s cause of death as a suicide.

Oregon State Police is investigating the officer-involved shooting that followed the deadliest mass shooting in state history.

A statement from the family of Mr Johnson said he was “proud of himself” to have recently enrolled in college and had “finally found his path”.

The father of the gunman told CNN that he was devastated by the news that his son was the killer and that his heart went out to all affected families.

“You get somebody who is emotionally or mentally distressed, then they also have access to weaponry, and it’s a bad combination”, Towers told the Smithsonian magazine in July.

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives s pokeswoman Celinez Nunez said all of the weapons were purchased legally, seven of them by the shooter or his family members in the last three years.

Hanlin added that investigators continue to “try to gain an understanding” of what happened in order to prevent similar tragedies in the future and to provide detailed information to victims’ families.

Harper-Mercer had a 9mm Glock pistol and.40-calibre Smith & Wesson on him when he opened fire at the college, authorities said.

It is the 45th school shooting in the United States this year. “I’ve never held a gun in my life”. She declined to say whether the gunman was taken into custody or killed.

He says he looked up at the gunman and told him it was his son’s birthday, and that’s when the gunman shot him two more times.

In a photo posted on Mercer’s MySpace profile, a man with a shaved head and dark-rimmed eyeglasses stares into camera while holding a rifle.

Investigators have also taken documents and digital media from the school and the shooter’s home and auto, Hanlin said. “I’ve put green porch lights up too”, she said. “And he walked to the center and began to shoot them as they were laying down”, her father, Pastor Randy, said.

The nine victims of a community college shooting in the USA on Thursday have been named.

Sheriff John Hanlin made the disclosure Saturday at a news conference.

Authorities initially refused to name the gunman, and shed no light on his motive.

At a few point of his life, Harper-Mercer appears to have been sympathetic to the Irish Republican Army, a militant group that waged a violent campaign to drive the British from Northern Ireland.

Janet Willis said her granddaughter Anastasia Boylan was wounded in the Thursday attack and pretended to be dead as Harper-Mercer kept firing, killing eight students and a teacher.

Stephanie Salas, the mother of Rand McGowan, another student who survived, said she was told by her son that the shooter asked victims whether they were religious but did not specifically target Christians.

Scroggins said he was grateful his daughter survived Harper-Mercer’s attack.