Governor calls for gun control

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This article was published 28/08/2015 (3841 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

RICHMOND, Va. — Gov. Terry McAuliffe has rankled some Virginia Republicans by repeatedly calling for greater gun control after Wednesday’s deadly shootings in Southwest Virginia.

“Clearly that gentleman should not have owned a gun,” McAuliffe said of Vester Flanagan, who killed a two-person news crew on live television early Wednesday. “That’s plain and simple. That was a tragedy. Now I have no idea if any new gun laws would have changed that, we don’t know, but my job as governor is to do everything I humanly possibly can do to make our communities safe.”

Several Republican legislators took to Twitter to blast McAuliffe for what one called his “shameless politicization of tragedy” — particularly because closing the gun-show loophole, a gun control measure McAuliffe mentioned, wouldn’t have kept the gun out of Flanagan’s hands.

“I thought it was extremely unfortunate that while the family is still in shock at this news and while a manhunt is still actively underway, that the governor saw fit to try to advance his legislative agenda,” said Deputy House Majority Leader C. Todd Gilbert, R-Shenandoah. “The even more unfortunate thing is that the agenda that the governor cited apparently has nothing to do with the facts of this tragic case.”

Flanagan legally purchased the Glock 9mm pistol used in the shootings from a federally licensed dealer in Virginia, said Thomas Faison, a spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Faison declined to disclose whether the sale took place at a store or at a gun show, but he said the dealer conducted a background check on Flanagan. There was nothing in Flanagan’s criminal or mental-health history that should have prohibited the sale, Faison said.

“He wouldn’t have gotten it otherwise,” Faison said.

 

— Washington Post