Four killed in California washing machine row

Op-Ed: It looks like a row over a washing machine New Year's Eve resulted in multiple deaths.

The shootings took place at a residential property in Rowland Heights, Los Angeles, California.

In what almost sounds like the plot of a comedy farce USA Today reports Saturday "A man shot and killed his wife and two others in his home on New Year's Eve before his son wrestled the gun away and fatally shot him."

The tragic events apparently followed a disagreement over a washing machine.

The original shooter is described as a heavy drinking 54-year-old with a large gun collection and this is not the first time police have been called to the property.

Police have questioned witnesses as they try to piece together just what happened.

In that case how come the man was still able to have a large gun collection on hand when he flipped out?

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The son named as 33-year-old Christopher Morey has been arrested on suspicion of murdering his father; was it self-defence or motivated by something else.

Morey is being held on $1 million bail which seems an unusual step in the USA.

Here in the UK we have become used to reading or hearing news from across the pond about shooters who escape justice because they claimed to have killed in self-defence.

The father shot and killed three people, Morey's 54-year-old bedridden mother, his 48-year-old girlfriend and 27-year-old Ernesto Calzadilla who was visiting, before the gun was wrestled from him and he was subsequently shot dead.

A Go Fund Me page has been launched to help pay for funeral costs for Calzadilla, a father of a young child.

Saturday it has been widely reported "Obama to announce executive action on guns" and you have to say 'at last. However the powerful gun lobby in the USA will fight any restrictions tooth and nail and in a presidential election year the Democrats and the Republicans will not want to make waves.