They neglect that true psychopaths, like the perpetrator of the Michigan State tragedy, cruise through background checks and red flag screenings.
Whenever there is a horrific mass shooting somewhere in the country, the liberal chattering classes begin the usual mantra. Calls for red flag laws and a ban on assault weapons flood the op-ed pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post, even if the crime in question would not have been prevented by such legislation. The recent tragedy on the campus of Michigan State University is a case in point. The shooter, Anthony McRae, did not use an assault weapon, and a red flag law would not have worked in his case. McRae was despondent over the death of his mother but was not previously violent, nor had he threatened anyone before the shooting. If depression or mental illness became a criterion for disarming an individual, most of our country’s citizens — including at least one serving senator — could be disarmed at some point in their lives.
