Authorities in Minneapolis have arrested a 28-year-old suspect in the drive-by shooting of a group of Minnesota National Guard troopers Sunday, and one significant detail underscores an inherent problem with gun control: It repeatedly fails.
According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s Office has charged Andrew Thomas with illegal possession of a firearm in connection with the shooting. Thomas was arrested by police hours after the shooting. Inside the vehicle he was driving were two handguns, which the suspect is prohibited from possessing because he is a convicted felon.
CNN reported one of the guns was a 9mm pistol and the other a .22-caliber revolver. Investigators also found two spent cartridge cases in the Ford Explorer Thomas was reportedly driving, according to the news network.
Two troopers were injured in the incident, one by flying glass, the newspaper said.
But the incident is just one more example of the failure of gun control laws that proponents decline to acknowledge. Instead, anti-gunners simply double down, demanding even more gun restrictions.
On Tuesday, according to WHKY News in Hickory, N.C., a man identified as Jason Elliot-Daniels Koscheck was arrested by Alexander County Sheriff’s deputies on a traffic stop. He was charged with felony possession of a firearm by a felon, according to the report. He was later released on bond pending a court appearance April 26.
In West Virginia, a man identified as Michael L. Saltis of Lost Creek is in jail after pleading guilty in mid-April to fleeing from police and being a felon in possession of a firearm. The 32-year-old Saltis was charged back in June 2020. He had been found in possession of a rifle and pistol, according to WVNews.com.
A suspect identified as Cody M. Harding of Cambridge, Ohio has been charged with being a felon in possession of a handgun. He reportedly was arrested following a foot pursuit April 16, and police allegedly found a loaded revolver in his pants, according to the Daily Jeffersonian.
Authorities in Vicksburg, Miss., arrested Marvell Amos recently on a traffic stop when they learned of the warrant for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. He was also wanted in Texas for a parole violation, according to the Vicksburg Post. He reportedly made the mistake of appearing in a rap video “shared on social media” last month. In that video were six other people wanted for weapon possession by a felon, the newspaper said.
In Wisconsin, Martin Curlee of LaCrosse will spend 51 months in a federal prison for being a felon in possession of a firearm, according to a Department of Justice news release. Last October, he was arrested when police found him walking around with a gun in his hand. The DOJ release said he had “a substantial criminal history” and “mental health issues…exacerbated by drug abuse.”
Then there is the case of Damion Tobias Bryant, 39, who reportedly managed to be arrested three times within a one-month period, and by the time the third bust occurred, according to NorthEscambia.com in Century, Fla., he was “free on bonds totaling nearly a half-million dollars.”
Bryant was arrested on April 1, and he allegedly had a loaded AK-47 along with other drug-related evidence. On March 19, he was arrested and at the time police found a .45-caliber pistol in his possession. Charges against Bryant include trafficking in methamphetamine, trafficking fentanyl, possession of a controlled substance without a prescription, possession of drug paraphernalia and driving with a suspended license, the report noted.
All of these cases add up to a continued failure of existing gun control laws to keep firearms out of the wrong hands, while anti-gunners want to adopt more restrictions on law-abiding citizens. Gun control proponents, say rights activists, don’t understand that criminals do not obey gun control laws. The cases mentioned above prove it.
