Yesterday morning I had to post an update on my Navy Yard article, some of which I’ve incorporated into today’s article for the sake of emphasis. Recapping what I wrote yesterday, I had waited until the very end of the day on Monday, around midnight eastern time, before posting an article containing the details regarding the massacre in Washington, D.C. Once it appeared as if nearly every news outlet had published the same information — specifically that one of Alexis’ firearms was the eerily familiar AR-15 semi-automatic assault rifle — I made the call to go with the AR-15 detail. Around twelve hours later, CNN reported that the gunman might not have used an AR-15. Hence the update and clarification.
In the update, I wrote that the existence or nonexistence of an AR-15, the infamous firearm used at Aurora and Sandy Hook, was ultimately irrelevant to the broader question of exactly how Alexis was able to purchase a firearm at all, much less attain card access to a secured military facility, considering his questionable history.
However, it turns out Alexis had actually attempted to buy an AR-15 as his first weapon of choice from the Sharpshooters Small Arms Range in Lorton, Virginia last Saturday. But Virginia state law forbids the purchase of AR-15s by out-of-state residents. Any upside the Virginia law might have provided was entirely decimated when, according to a lawyer for the gun shop who was quoted by The New York Times, Alexis had passed a federal background check, allowing him to buy a Remington 870 Express 12-gauge shotgun and 24 shells, which he used at the Navy Yard on Monday.
This news is absolutely breathtaking given Alexis’ history of prior gun violence incidents and, as was reported yesterday, the fact that Alexis suffered from paranoid delusions and, in one case, called the Newport, Rhode Island police to his hotel room because he apparently heard voices inside the walls talking to him… [CONTINUE READING]