By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
Gun control proponents have raced to exploit the inexplicable slaying of three Michigan State University students by a 43-year-old suspect who was not a student, and who was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The suspected killer has been identified as Anthony McRae. He has no known connection to the university in East Lansing. But he did use a gun, and that was all it took for anti-gunners to emerge into the spotlight.
However, the gunman has “a recent history” involving firearms and problems with the police, according to the Detroit News, which noted he “was charged with multiple gun-related crimes in 2019.” The newspaper said McRae was arrested in June of that year carrying a concealed pistol without a permit. “The initial charge was a felony that carried a potential penalty of five years in prison, according to the records,” the newspaper said. He subsequently pleaded guilty to a lesser misdemeanor charge. He was sentenced to 12 months’ probation, but an additional six months was added to that in October 2020, the newspaper reported. During his probation, he was not allowed to have any weapons.
The Washington Post is reporting that McRae apparently bought a gun following his arrest in 2019, and that he kept lying to his father about having the gun.
Firearms are not allowed on the university campus.
None of this information has apparently deterred Michigan Democrats now in control of the State Legislature. They are also promising action, according to the Detroit News. House Majority Floor Leader Abraham Aiyash said in a tweet, “In the coming days, @MIHouseDems are committed to enacting policies that will address this uniquely American problem of gun violence. We’ll pray for those impacted. And we’ll finally enact policies to prevent future tragedies.”
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer issued a statement, quoted by the Detroit News: “This is a uniquely American problem. Too many of us scan rooms for exits when we enter them. We plan who that last text or call would go to. We should not, we cannot, accept living like this.”
Michigan State Rep. Ranjeev Puri, the House Majority whip, tweeted, “F—k your thoughts and prayers.” He vowed to “work tirelessly to pass common sense gun reform immediately.”
Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin, a Lansing Democrat whose district encompasses the university campus, was quoted by the Detroit Free Press in a tweet, “I am filled with rage that we have to have another press conference to talk about our children being killed in their schools.”
MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, as reported by Forbes, quickly “pleaded” with politicians to “do something.” According to the Forbes report, Scarborough told listeners, “it’s not about mental health. It’s not about video games. It’s not about any of the things the apologists for the gun lobby say it is…it’s about guns and the proliferation of guns.”
Writing at Esquire, in a short article headlined “Michigan State, This Nation’s Addiction to Guns Just Took 3 More Lives,” author and journalist Charles P. Pierce declared, “We do not yet know why the suspect did what he did and then rode a bullet out. We know where and when he did what he did…But the easiest question is always how he did what he did. He was able to do what he did because this country has an insane attraction to its firearms.”
The left-leaning Vox published a report in which it stated, “No other high-income country has suffered such a high death toll from gun violence. Every day, 120 Americans die at the end of a gun, including suicides and homicides, an average of 43,475 per year. Since 2009, there has been an annual average of 19 shootings in which at least four people are killed. The US gun homicide rate is as much as 26 times that of other high-income countries; its gun suicide rate is nearly 12 times higher.”
The university cancelled classes Tuesday and Wednesday, according to Fox News.
