Incredible as it appears, public attention is shifting away from the fact that gun control laws evidently did not stop the alleged killer at a Washington State shopping mall to reports that he evidently illegally registered to vote – he is not a U.S. citizen – and actually cast ballots in three elections.
What’s more important, the possibility that the accused gunman illegally voted or that he shot down five innocent people while getting around gun control laws in the process?
KING 5 News, the NBC affiliate in Seattle, is reporting that the accused killer apparently tried to buy a gun at an Island County gun shop just hours before the Sept. 23 attack at the Cascade Mall where he murdered four women and a man. He allegedly asked if there was a way he could buy a gun without a background check.
Washington voters passed a so-called “universal background check” law in 2014, but in the case of a gun shop, that wouldn’t make a difference, anyway. All retail sales of firearms require a background check under federal law. The expanded law, under Initiative 594, applies to private transfers.
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The Seattle Times is also reporting that a new witness has stepped forward to suggest that the accused mall shooter may have been trying to sneak into a theater prior to attacking shoppers at a nearby Macy’s. This raises the possibility that he wanted to stage his attack in a more target-rich environment.
Still, the story that is getting attention on the Drudge Report website, which has a strong national audience, is about the suspect’s ability to register as a voter in 2014. He could not do that legally, but apparently this didn’t stop him from participating in elections, a right reserved to citizens. The suspect is a legal resident alien.
One can rest assured that the gun prohibition lobby would much rather the public focus on voting law violations instead of the total failure of its gun control agenda to prevent yet another tragedy.
Background check requirements have not prevented mass shootings. Nearly all the shooters in recent high-profile mass shootings have passed background checks. In a couple of significant exceptions, the gunmen stole the firearms they used (i.e. Clackamas Town Square near Portland and Cascade Mall).
But shooters at the Washington Navy Yard, Orlando, Tucson, Fort Hood, Seattle’s Jewish Federation office, Aurora theater, Virginia Tech and elsewhere bought their guns at retail and passed the checks.
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