ROSEBURG, Ore.  – The gunman who went on a deadly rampage at an Oregon college was heavily armed and equipped with extra ammunition, authorities said on Friday, and he might have killed more people were it not for the heroism of a military veteran in an adjoining classroom.

A day after the shooter killed nine people and wounded nine others at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, authorities sought a motive for this year’s bloodiest mass shooting in the United States, where such massacres have grown all too common.

Local broadcaster KOIN reported on Friday that the gunman, identified by law enforcement sources as Chris Harper-Mercer, 26, was a student at the college and enrolled in the writing class where the shooting took place. The television station did not state the source of the information in its Twitter post. Reuters could not immediately confirm the information.

The gunman, who was killed by police, carried six guns, body armor and five magazines of bullets with him to campus, according to Celinez Nunez, assistant special agent of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Nunez said seven more firearms were found with a significant stockpile of ammunition at the apartment the suspect shared with his mother just outside Roseburg, a former timber town about 180 miles (290 km) south of Portland. All the guns were purchased legally, she said.

The gunman stormed into a classroom on campus, shot a professor in the head and then ordered cowering students to stand up and state their religion before shooting them one by one, according to survivors’ accounts. 

As the gunman moved toward an adjoining classroom, Chris Mintz, 30, a U.S. Army combat veteran who served in Iraq, tried to stop him, Jamie Skinner, the mother of Mintz’s 6-year-old son told Reuters. The gunman opened fire, striking Mintz.

“When Chris hit the ground, he told him it was our son’s birthday yesterday. He took a couple more rounds after that,” Skinner said, adding that the gunman then changed direction and entered a different room.

“The assailant was not able to make it into the classroom, because Chris stopped him,” she said, noting that Mintz was hospitalized with two broken legs and seven bullet wounds.

The Oregon shooting, the latest in a series of high-profile mass killings across the country, has led to fresh demands for stricter gun control in the United States, including an impassioned plea by President Barack Obama for political action, and statements by some Republican presidential candidates supporting the right of Americans to bear arms.

The latter is a position championed in the past by Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin, who has refused since the shooting to comment on the gun control debate and has repeatedly declined to name the gunman during press conferences.

“Media and community members who publicize his name will only glorify his horrific actions,” Hanlin said. “And eventually, this will only serve to inspire future shooters.”

The sheriff on Friday identified the dead as Lawrence Levine, 67, the professor, and eight others who are believed to have been his students: Quinn Cooper, 18; Kim Saltmarsh Dietz, 59; Lucas Eibel, 18; Jason Johnson, 33 or 34; Sarena Moore, 44; Treven Anspach, 20; and Rebecka Carnes, 18; and Lucero Alcaraz, 19.