By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
President Joe Biden moved quickly to exploit the Monday night shooting at Michigan State University that left three students dead and five others wounded by calling for more gun control, but his wish list includes a ban on so-called “assault weapons,” which weren’t involved in the crime.
Biden mentioned the gun ban in two statements release by the White House.
“As I said in my State of the Union address last week,” Biden said in one statement, “Congress must do something and enact commonsense gun law reforms, including requiring background checks on all gun sales, banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, closing loopholes in our background check system, requiring safe storage of guns, and eliminating immunity for gun manufacturers who knowingly put weapons of war on our streets.”
There was nothing in either of his public statements about cracking down on criminals or enforcing existing gun laws. Nor has Biden commented on the gun law violations known to have been committed by the man responsible for Monday night’s mayhem, Anthony McRae.
That was not lost on Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
“We’re tired of gun-hating, headline-grabbing politicians racing to the nearest microphone to push their anti-rights agenda every time a criminal or deranged individual commits a violent crime,” he said in a prepared statement. “That’s not justice, it’s political grandstanding designed to penalize people who had nothing to do with the crime. Passing new laws that only impact honest citizens creates the false impression something has been done to prevent a similar crime in the future. At the very least, it’s dishonest.”
Published reports have revealed McRae’s criminal background and the leniency he got from a former county prosecutor who didn’t prosecute him for a felony in 2019—carrying a concealed handgun without a license—and only charged him with a misdemeanor. McRae was on probation for a year, but he retained his right to own guns.
“It’s not just soft judges who make hardened criminals,” Gottlieb observed. “It’s also soft-in-the-head progressive prosecutors.
“Various published reports have revealed McRae’s past brushes with the law,” he continued. “Let’s look at the facts. Guns are prohibited on the MSU campus, yet there he was with a firearm. There’s a law against murder in Michigan, and he committed three of them. What makes anybody think passing more laws will prevent the next madman from doing the same thing?”
McRae killed himself hours after the campus shooting spree as police closed in.
In his remarks, Biden has seemed oblivious of these facts.
The Detroit Free Press acknowledged it is “not known whether the reforms being encouraged by Biden would have had a specific impact on the circumstances surrounding the Michigan State incident. Authorities have not said what weapon or weapons the shooter used or how or when he obtained them.”
While authorities haven’t officially commented, images of McRae entering a campus building clearly show him holding a handgun in his right hand. CCRKBA’s Gottlieb contends the incident may never have happened if McRae’s 2019 brush with the law had been harder.
“Had existing laws been enforced more than three years ago, this crime might never have happened because, at the very least,” Gottlieb posited, “McRae would have been unable to legally own or possess a firearm.”
