While liberals on Twitter pointed at the shooting of four firefighters in upstate New York as evidence that more gun control is necessary, NBC News reports that the gunman, one William Spengler, was already banned from owning guns.
Spengler served 17 years in prison for killing his grandmother with a hammer in 1980. He was convicted only of manslaughter, and was paroled in 1998. It seems that stronger sentencing for convicted murderers might be a more worthwhile goal of liberals seeking to prevent gun violence.
Spengler shot the firefighters just before 6 a.m. ET in Webster, New York. He’d set the fire, then waited for the firefighters to show up before shooting them. “It does appear that it was a trap that was set,” said Webster Police Chief Gerald Pickering. “People who get up in the middle of the night to fight fires, they don’t expect to get shot and killed.”
Spengler shot himself.
New York already has some of the most stringent gun laws in the nation. Felons, like Spengler, are already barred by law from owning guns according to federal law.
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