By now I'm sure you've all been hearing about the 14 year old in Pennsylvania was planning a Columbine-esque attack on a local highschool, right? Probably a lot of irate people thinking that this is a prime example of needing more gun control in America, right? Well they're wrong! Let's look at it logically.
First, this kid was 14 years old, by law he couldn't own anything that he had in which weapons cache. The rifles, the swords, knives, airguns, nothing. You have to be a minimum of 16 to buy a knife and 18 to buy a rifle or shotgun, this kid was only 14. By law he was banned from buying any kind of weapon, so you can't get more restrictive than that.
There's the issue about the kid's mother buying him the 9mm rifle at a gun show. Again, not a case for more gun control. By Pennsylvania state law, each and every gun sale is required to involve a federally licensed firearms dealer; there's no such thing as a private sale in that state. So the mother's guilty of comitting a straw purchase, that's a Federal offense and will get you 10 years in prison.
Also Pennsylvania has gun registration, done in the form of police keeping records about all firearms transactions, so they know who bought what.
Pennsylvania also has laws against juvenile possession of firearms. They also have laws mandating that trigger locks come with every gun sold.
Second, along with all these weapons the kid also had a hand painted nazi flag, tapes about the Columbine massacre, and functioning hand grenades, which he was making by himself. It seems that he fully intended to do damage no matter what, so it's not as simple as saying "if guns were banned this never would've happened", because this kid would've still had knives and bombs. He could've done like the Columbine killers and rigged up propane tank explosives. But that's beside the point.
The mother is currently facing at least six criminal charges, (unlawful transfer of a fiream, possession of a firearm by a minor, corruption of a minor, endangering the welfare of a child and two counts of reckless endangerment) which can get her in a lot of trouble and earn her a lot of prison time of the prosecutors follow through with the law rather than just plea bargaining away the charges like they never even existed.
All kinds of law were not just broken, but grossly violated here with complete disregard. Does anybody think that another law or two might've done any good?
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