By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
As more details emerge about the transgender gunman responsible for this week’s deadly mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms declared in a blistering statement that gun control proponents are once again wrong that restrictive gun laws can prevent such tragedies.
CNN and other news organizations have identified the suspected killer as Jesse Van Rootselaar, an 18-year-old Tumbler Ridge resident with a troubling past.
The BBC is reporting that police in the remote Rocky Mountain community located near the British Columbia border with neighboring Alberta had previously been to the suspect’s home, and at one point had confiscated firearms there. The guns were eventually returned after the owner petitioned for their release.
Van Rootselaar was found dead inside the Tumbler Ridge Secondary School, with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. In addition to the six people he murdered at the school, an adult and five children, he is also believed to have killed his mother and step-brother at the family home prior to the school rampage.
Already, at least some media is referring to the suspected killer as “she” and “her,” although Van Rootselaar was born a biological male and reportedly began transitioning about six years ago.
But the CCRKBA zeroed in on Canadian gun laws for providing a false sense of security.
“Eight people are dead because Canadian politicians haphazardly believed that restricting millions of honest gun owners would somehow prevent a madman from committing mayhem,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “That has never worked before, it didn’t work in northeast British Columbia, and it won’t work tomorrow in Canada, the United States or anywhere else, and by now, gun control zealots in both countries should have figured that out.”
Guns found next to the suspect’s body were not registered to him. They are being only described as a long gun and modified handgun.
“As more information about the suspected shooter is made public,” Gottlieb observed, “it is clear this individual had some serious mental and emotional problems.”
Gottlieb is critical of U.S.-based gun prohibitionists for frequently arguing that this country should adopt restrictive gun laws like they have in Canada. Stopping them is the Second Amendment and some 42 state constitutional right-to-bear-arms provisions.
“What this and other incidents have shown us is that banning certain types of guns, requiring all sorts of paperwork, creating so-called ‘gun-free zones,’ and adopting safe storage mandates will not prevent deranged individuals from committing deadly crimes,” Gottlieb said. “Anyone who thinks otherwise is horribly mistaken, if not completely delusional.
“It is time for the gun control crowd on both sides of the border to come to their senses,” Gottlieb stated. “Penalizing law-abiding citizens with onerous gun restrictions is a social experiment which was obviously fatally flawed from the beginning, and we can only hope Canadian authorities will finally recognize that, and try some other strategy.”
