One person was killed when a Metro bus was hijacked at gunpoint around 12:45 a.m. Wednesday in stringently gun-controlled Los Angeles, California.
KTLA reported that LAPD received calls regarding the incident and learned that “a person on the bus had pulled out a gun, prompting the bus driver to activate a panic button that displays a ‘CALL 911’ outside the bus.”
Responding officers located the bus “near West 117th Street and South Figueroa Street,” but it began to be driven away from them as they approached it. Los Angeles Police Department Deputy Chief Donald Graham noted that the bus driver had a gun to his head and drove away from officers because he was ordered to do so.
Graham said, “Clearly he was under duress and under the threat of violence … for him to be able to keep his composure is a reflection on the bus operators in the system.”
The Los Angeles Time noted that police followed the bus “for more than an hour” before deploying spike strips to blow out the vehicle’s tires. A SWAT team then entered the bus and took control of the situation.
The suspected hijacker was arrested and a bus passenger with multiple gunshot wounds was discovered. That passenger died later in the hospital.
Neither the bus driver nor another passenger who was on the bus were harmed.
California has more gun control than any state in the Union and those controls include an “assault weapons” ban, a “high capacity” magazine ban, universal background checks, gun registration requirements, a red flag law, a gun storage law, a 10-day waiting period on gun purchases, a limit on the number of guns a law-abiding citizen can buy each month, a ban on campus carry for self-defense, a ban on K-12 teachers being armed for classroom defense, and numerous controls on ammunition, among other things.
Breitbart News reported that Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed 24 new gun control provisions earlier this week.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio, a member of Gun Owners of America, a Pulsar Night Vision pro-staffer, and the director of global marketing for Lone Star Hunts. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010 and has a Ph.D. in Military History. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.