By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
A trio of highly-publicized shootings—meaning they can be sensationalized by the establishment media and exploited by the gun prohibition movement—have raised a serious question: Should lawmakers adopt more stringent gun control laws, or simply allow existing statutes to do what they’re supposed to do?
Criminal charges have been filed against 84-year-old Andrew Lester of Kansas City in the shooting of 16-year-old Ralph Yarl, according to the Daily Beast. Lester is white and Yarl is black. Lester reportedly told police he believed the teen was trying to break into his house, but Yarl apparently had gone to the wrong house while trying to pick up his younger siblings.
Yarl appears to be recovering from his wounds, according to CNN.
In New York, authorities there have arrested 65-year-old Kevin Monahan in the shooting death of Kaylin Gillis, who was in a car with friends when they reportedly drove into the wrong driveway, apparently looking for a party. According to Fox News, Monahan allegedly came out as the car was attempting to turn around, and fired “at least two shots, one of which struck Gillis.”
Fox News reported that when Washington County Sheriff’s deputies arrived at the scene, Monahan refused to come outside and cooperate. After negotiating for about an hour, Monahan was taken into custody.
Tuesday night in Elgin, Texas, two cheerleaders were shot after one of them tried to get into the wrong car in a parking lot, apparently thinking it was her ride home from a training session. According to NBC News, a man identified as Pedro Tello Rodriguez Jr. was arrested and charged with “deadly conduct,” which is a third-degree felony.
ABC News is reporting that one of the cheerleaders, Heather Roth, posted on Instagram that she was with three other cheerleaders in a carpool just after midnight Tuesday when she got out of the car and went to what she thought was her own car and got it. Instead, she found a man in the passenger seat and quickly got back out, and back into her friend’s car.
The story said the man approached the friend’s car and Roth rolled down the window to apologize, and that’s when the suspect opened fire. The Instagram post has reportedly been taken down.
Now what? The three tragic incidents are the type typically used by gun control proponents to push for even more restrictions on law-abiding gun owners.
On the other side of the gun debate, the prevailing wisdom is to allow existing laws to take their course, same as they will in the Alabama case involving a mass shooting at a Sweet 16 birthday party in Dadeville. Two suspects, ages 16 and 17, are now in custody in connection with that shooting, which left four people dead and 32 others injured, according to Fox News.
The suspects, Ty Reik McCullough and Travis McCullough, face charges of reckless murder. The justice system will deal with them, as it will deal with Lester from Kansas City and Monahan up in New York. They will be on trial, while at the same time, the gun control lobby will be trying to hold ever other gun owner responsible in some way.
