The highly-publicized arrest of a 17-year-old double-homicide suspect in Pierce County, Washington over the weekend serves as a stark reminder that restrictive gun management measures which have an effect on solely law-abiding residents don’t stop—and by no means will—the legal misuse of firearms.
It’s the “dirty-little-not-so-secret” failure of the gun prohibition motion.
The teenager, recognized as Isaiah Davion Williams, has been charged as an grownup on two counts of first-degree homicide and one rely of second-degree illegal possession of a firearm, in accordance with Seattle’s KOMO, the native ABC affiliate.
Protection of the incident and the suspect by the Seattle Occasions goes into larger element. In 2024, the suspect “pleaded responsible…to 2 counts of third-degree assault for an incident by which he used a gun as a ‘bludgeon’ to hit a lady within the face repeatedly” in 2023. Additionally in 2023, he was charged with fourth-degree assault by King County prosecutors for allegedly hitting one other teenage boy in his faculty locker room.”
Within the assault case, the Occasions revealed, “A decide ordered his juvenile rehabilitation sentence be suspended in favor of group supervision, which included psychological well being therapy and volunteer work.” Within the different assault case, “That cost was dismissed as a part of a decision by his responsible plea to third-degree assault,” the newspaper mentioned.
Lastly, Williams “pleaded responsible to illegal possession of a firearm for allegedly making an attempt to enter the King County Superior Courthouse with a loaded firearm, that police later decided was stolen from a gun seller.”
That is hardly an issue confined to Washington state. CBS Information is reporting the arrest of a 17-year-old in Ramsey County, Minn., “after authorities say they confiscated at the very least 10 ghost weapons or handguns geared up with change units.”
The CBS report famous, “The Ramsey County Sheriff’s Workplace reported {that a} raid on a house on the east facet of St. Paul resulted within the restoration of “ghost weapons, automated machine weapons, a number of prolonged magazines and sufficient ammunition for a number of drive-by shootings.”
Out in Marin County, Calif., the San Jose Mercury Information is reporting investigators “arrested a federal probationer on allegations of methamphetamine gross sales and gun offenses.” When lawmen searched the suspect’s dwelling in San Rafael and a storage unit in Richmond, they reportedly discovered 14 firearms, together with stolen weapons.
In the meantime, WKRN in Nashville, Tenn., is reporting the arrest of a 34-year-old man on probation for offenses in 2022. Police reportedly discovered greater than 300 grams “of powder that examined optimistic for fentanyl” together with “a totally loaded Glock handgun with an prolonged journal, a Taurus handgun and a short-barreled AR-15.”
The frequent denominator in all of those circumstances is the legal backgrounds and/or underage possession of firearms. Youngsters, like convicted grownup felons, can not legally buy handguns anyplace, they usually can not legally carry hid handguns, but within the Pierce County case, the 2 folks killed have been each apparently carrying weapons. One was 19 and the opposite 15, printed studies say.
Google up the time period “unlawful gun possession” and one may provide you with studies just like the one within the Laredo Morning Occasions describing expenses in opposition to a Texas man who possessed firearms. The suspect is a convicted felon.
Over in Evansville, Ind., a recidivist named Marquell Lockridge is off to jail after being convicted of unlawful possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, in accordance with WFIE Information.
The gun prohibition foyer and its allies in state legislatures and on Capitol Hill both don’t “get it” or truly don’t care that criminals ignore gun management legal guidelines. The entire restrictive measures adopted anyplace within the nation solely have an effect on law-abiding residents. Trustworthy persons are inconvenienced, penalized and presumed to be responsible of crimes which haven’t been dedicated.
Critics of harder gun legal guidelines—the grassroots gun rights activists—consider all the restrictions are literally designed to discourage folks from exercising their Second Modification-protected proper to maintain and bear arms.
For instance, out in Washington, anti-gun lawmakers are pushing laws Home Invoice 1163, which requires a permit-to-purchase a firearm. This mandate would come with completion of a gun security course, together with a live-fire train, and beginning in November 2026, would additionally apply to acquiring and renewing hid pistol licenses. If the regulation is adopted, firearms rights teams have already vowed to mount challenges in court docket. The invoice is up for a listening to this Friday earlier than the Senate Methods and Means Committee.
How this may have an effect on Washington CPL purposes stays to be seen. The state Division of Licensing informed Ammoland Information that March ended with 700,943 energetic CPLs. The quantity is up from February’s 699,350 energetic licenses.
It quantities to a sign that Evergreen State residents will not be shopping for any of the arguments that stricter gun management legal guidelines will make them safer. With greater than 21 million energetic carry licenses throughout the U.S., folks in different states have clearly reached the identical conclusion whereas anti-gun politicians proceed to bury their heads within the sand.
About Dave Workman
Dave Workman is a senior editor at TheGunMag.com and Liberty Park Press, writer of a number of books on the Proper to Preserve & Bear Arms, and previously an NRA-certified firearms teacher.
