When you hear the gun crowd say, ‘guns don’t kill people, people do’, kick them to the curb. Such bumper sloganeering has no place in a developed, mature democracy like America unless you want to bury your head in the sand and let the pandemic of mass murder continue. What took place in Raleigh, North Carolina where a 15 year old went on a rampage in his community and killed 5 people including his older brother may be new to Raleigh but it’s happened before and that’s the problem.
Back in 1998 two boys down in Arkansa killed five people in their school when those two were 11 & 13 years old. Yeah….an eleven year old child along with his thirteen year old buddy killed four students and a teacher. Their names were Mitchell Johnson and Andrew Golden. They had nine firearms and 2,000 rounds of ammunition. Luckily none of their weapons were semi automatic rifles. Imagine the death toll they could’ve inflicted as they lay in ambush as students and staff filed out into the open. Remember this; they were just 11 & 13 years old. Let that sink in for a minute………………….In the state where they lived, they were tried as juveniles and released when they reached 21 years old. Moving on to the present where,
in Raleigh, Austin Thompson 15 years old walked around his neighborhood for several hours killing people at random. He was described by eyewitnesses as between 13-16 years of age, small, very young. One has to wonder whether his victims who when they first laid eyes on him saw the same small statured boy described by 911 callers whose appearance made them stifle their flight response to danger just long enough for him to kill them. Torres, one of the shooter’s victims, was a police officer on his way to work. Eventually the boy was taken into custody and whisked to the hospital with bullet wounds to the head and body. It’s unclear whether he attempted to kill himself or was shot by police.
There’s no mention in published reports about the boy’s parents who rightfully deserve attention if for no other reason than whether there were firearms in the home. It’s also unclear what type and how many weapons the boy used in his murder spree but I certainly hope a 15 year old boy living a suburban life with parents couldn’t go out and get weapons from the streets. Maybe that IS possible but for now the parents have a responsibility to monitor, influence and correct the behavior of their children for it’s the parent people usually go to to inform and ask about why children behave the way they do. Unfortunately it’s too late for corrective action on the part of the parent. That now is the responsibility of the State. So, that said, Mr. and Mrs Thompson why did your boy have access to guns and go out and kill five people including your other son? It’s a reasonable two part question to ask parents of juvenile murderers. What was going on with your child emotionally, mentally, psychologically and where and how did they get hold of firearms.
People with guns kill people and as the lethality and rapidity of firearms becomes more potent who has access to these weapons of death should become a priority of the State. Yes, it must be regulated by the State because as much as 2nd Amendment people want to complain about infringement and regulation it is also the responsibility of lawmakers to insure the safety of the citizens of the state. Common sense gun legislation is the key . Parents with juvenile children in the house should not have firearms within the reach of immature children and when those children get ahold of their parents’ weapons and commit acts of violence parents should pay the price for their parental neglect. As of this writing there are over 500 acts of mass shootings commited by people with firearms in America. If that doesn’t bother you perhaps you don’t belong in a structured lawful society.
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