A confessed killer in Washington State used a rifle similar to this one. At his sentencing, he blamed loose gun laws for making it possible for him to kill three people.
By Dave Workman
Senior Editor
Evergreen State gun owners were outraged that a 20-year-old who pleaded guilty to a triple slaying last summer in an upscale community north of Seattle used his sentencing hearing in a bizarre effort to grandstand for gun control.
According to KCPQ, the local Fox News affiliate, admitted killer Allen Ivanov, reading from a prepared statement, said this:
“I wish they never sold me a firearm. I wish I was never legally allowed to buy one. I hope there will be a continuous effort to change the gun laws so that others cannot make such a tragic mistake.”
It was enough to elicit this reaction from a Seattle Times reader: “It is beyond sick that this scumbag murderer was allowed to use his sentencing hearing to publicly advocate that everyday citizens should lose their civil rights because he killed someone.”
The irony was compounded by the timing. This came one day before gun rights activists were scheduled to gather on the Capitol steps in Olympia, about 90 miles to the south, to rally in support of Second Amendment rights in the face of proposed legislation to ban so-called “assault weapons.”
Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson is advocating for a ban. Legislation was introduced earlier this month in both the Senate and House that would ban semiautomatic rifles and large-capacity magazines, despite the fact that rifles of any kind are used in a fraction of murders in Washington or elsewhere around the United States.
Ivanov used a semi-automatic Ruger SR556, a modern sporting rifle that resembles an AR-15, to gun down three former classmates including his ex-girlfriend. She would not reconcile with him following a break-up, and this allegedly was the catalyst for his homicidal action.
Killed in the July 2016 attack were Anna Bui, Jordan Ebner and Jake Long.
After the shooting, Ivanov left the crime scene and was arrested about 90 miles later, nearly 100 miles away, on the highway south of Olympia.
The parents of his victims were present in the courtroom when Ivanov made his pitch for more gun laws. While he accepted responsibility, his words rang hollow with the victims’ families. Ebner’s father was quoted by the Seattle Times stating, “I want him to die and I wanted to be there to watch it happen. He took my first boy.”
Now, he has made a plea to the court suggesting that law-abiding gun owners should be penalized for the fact that he was admittedly “hopeless, suicidal and outraged with jealousy.”
