The Kansas City parade shooting has led to countless calls for gun control in the state of Missouri, though surprisingly few from inside the state itself.
Gun control advocates argue that the lack of gun laws in the state led to the shooting, including at least one retired ATF agent who claims he knew that to be the case.
But the only way that can really be true is if every step along the way prior to the shooting was conducted lawfully. If people are breaking the law along that whole chain, then it’s still a gun control failure no matter how people want to dress it up.
Well, three people have been arrested on gun charges that suggest things weren’t so lawful.
Three men from Kansas City, Missouri, face firearms charges, including gun trafficking, after an investigation into the mass shooting during the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl parade and rally, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Kansas City said that 22-year-old Fedo Antonia Manning, was charged in a 12-count complaint.
Ronnel Dewayne Williams Jr., 21, and Chaelyn Hendrick Groves, 19, were charged in four-count complaints. The charges were filed Monday and unsealed Wednesday, after the men were arrested, a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. Court documents that were part of the complaint said 12 people brandished firearms and at least six people fired weapons at the rally attended by an estimated 1 million people on Feb. 14. One woman died and nearly two dozen other people were injured.
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The new complaints made public Wednesday do not allege that the men were among the shooters. Instead, they are accused of involvement in straw purchases and trafficking firearms.
“Stopping straw buyers and preventing illegal firearms trafficking is our first line of defense against gun violence,” U.S. Attorney Teresa Moore said in the news release. “At least two of the firearms recovered from the scene of the mass shooting at Union Station were illegally purchased or trafficked.”
So the guns were originally obtained unlawfully. They were then trafficked unlawfully and put in the hands of the people who were involved in the shooting; people who couldn’t have bought these guns on their own.
We already know that at least one of the shooters allegedly had a stolen gun as well. That appears to have been via some other source rather than this one.
In other words, it seems just about every gun involved in this whole fiasco was obtained by way of some form of illegal activity.
And yet, we’re supposed to buy that the issue is that there just aren’t enough gun control laws? I’m sorry, but that’s just not going to fly.
Three people were arrested for straw purchases and gun trafficking and one of the shooters was allegedly found with a stolen gun. This isn’t just a few people otherwise obeying the law until they suddenly get into an argument and the bullets start to fly. These were all apparently people who cared nothing about the law in the first place, which likely made it easy for them to settle a disagreement with bullets.
It’s not a gun problem. It’s a people problem.
Some people are going to get guns no matter what you do. The laws only hurt those inclined to obey them. Others will find ways around those laws, as they did here.
