Republican Riot >> Utah Shooter’s Grandfather was Killed by a) Shellfire b) Execution c) Natural Causes d) None of the above?

The family can’t seem to decide:

Mr. Talovic’s motive remains a mystery, investigators say…The gunman’s aunt, Ajka Omerovic, and his father, who was visibly exhausted, spoke to a reporter just hours after Mr. Talovic’s body was cleansed in an Islamic ritual in preparation for its burial in Tuzla, Bosnia…

No religious Balkan Muslims to see here, move along.

Until Serbian forces began a siege of Talovici in April 1992, they said, theirs had been a humble but happy life…

How about: Until fundamentalist Bosnian Muslim President Alija Izetbegovic decided he wanted to carve out an Islamic state in Europe, theirs had been a humble but happy life in Bosnia, “when that country was a peaceful and a relatively prosperous part of Yugoslavia.”

Meanwhile, the family can’t seem to agree on the most effective way to portray the grandfather’s death for the media: they can’t decide if he died as earlier reported — by shellfire — or whether he was executed point-blank in front of toddler Talovic. From Reuters last week:

They spent two years in the town, during which Bosnian Serb forces besieged the enclave and Talovic’s grandfather was killed by shellfire, Redzo Talovic said.

And from today’s NY Times:

Some family members believed he had seen his grandfather’s execution, though there was disagreement over that.

Perhaps tomorrow the grandfather will weigh in by phone: “That’s not how I died!”

Back to today’s NY Times article:

In 2004, two classmates threatened Sulejman with a knife, his father said. His mother, frightened, then signed a form releasing him from attending school, the family said.

Ah, the story changes again. Before, the story — according to a radio interview with Talovic’s father — was that they pulled the kid out of school because he was caught looking at AK-47s on the Internet.

More from the NYT:

Ms. Omerovic said the Bosnian civil war alone as an explanation made no sense to her because all Bosnians had been “touched by war” but had not committed crimes.

Lest the family soon unanimously agree — or be convinced by Americans — that emotional trauma from the war must have taken seed in young Talovic, an email I received from forensic psychiatrist and special consultant to ABC News Dr. Michael Welner — who has examined several of this country’s most well-known mass killers and is associate professor of psychiatry at NYU School of Medicine — contradicts that, confirming the aunt’s (current) take:

In my experience examining mass shooters…they do not kill for having witnessed or having survived anything. The most I have seen are those numbed by the trauma of witnessing violence, not inspired to perpetuate mass violence. Otherwise, of course, the US would be full of refugees who carry out such attacks.