Authorities focus on Santa shooter's collection of weapons and ammunition

Investigators believe Bruce Jeffrey Pardo was buying guns at least as far back as June to prepare for the Christmas Eve shootings of his ex-wife and her family.

Covina Police Chief Kim Raney said that Pardo had five handguns registered to him and that four were used to kill his former relatives and one was used to kill himself.

"He was purchasing in June over the counter the registered handguns," Raney said.

Investigators also found shotguns and high-powered rifles at Pardo's Montrose home; they believe he may have bought them via out-of-state mailers or online.

Pardo had gun magazine subscriptions, and law enforcement sources told The Times he seemed to be looking up information online on how to build a pipe bomb or other weapons.

After a search of Pardo's home on Christmas, investigators found boxes and bags of evidence, including shotguns, rifles and a 2 1/2-foot-tall, red-cannister "Bykas" fueling system with tubes coming out of it and "WeFuelFun.com" written along its side. They believe it was a similar to a cannister that Pardo modified, filled with racing fuel and used to burn down the Covina home.

Covina police said Pardo has no criminal history.

--Tami Abdollah

Comments

[Barbara]

Since he visited his high school friend in October, I wonder if he got some of the guns from out of state at that time. That's an awful lot of weaponry collected since June.

[JAA]

He screwed up using gasoline. He was trying to make a Fuel-Air bomb, and should have used diesel. Good thing he DID screw up, or he'd have blown up the whole neighborhood, rather than just the house.

[Sara Flynn]

The journalist says the cannister was filled with "racing fuel" but doesn't specify what racing fuel is, nor how or why it matters. Turns out, it's just gasoline, but, that wouldn't sound as interesting to the gullible public.

At least the journalist didn't call it "high octane" racing fuel, which so many other idiot journalists parroted. While "high octane" sounds enticing, low octane would be just as meaningful as no octane since the octane rating of a fuel (i.e., a measure of it's resistance to knocking) is totally meaninglessoutside of an internal combustion engine.

The journalist should have just called the fuel "gasoline" but that wouldn't make as interesting a story, would it.

[BC]

"Investigators also found shotguns and high-powered rifles at Pardo's Montrose home; they believe he may have bought them via out-of-state mailers or online."

You can't simply buy rifles or shotguns "online" or from "out-of-state mailers" and have them shipped to your house. They would have to go through a dealer in California, and California has very strict (draconian) laws regulating firearms importation. He would have to pass the same background check as if he had bought them from a dealer's store stock.

Poor journalism.