February 23, 2024
By Mark Chesnut
Anti-gun bureaucrat Rahm Emanual, White House Chief of Staff under Barack Obama, once said, “Never let a serious crisis go to waste.” Unfortunately for the ongoing debate over private firearms ownership in the country, President Joe Biden has apparently adopted that as his new motto. After the recent shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs victory parade, Biden said the shooting should “shock us” into action over gun laws.
“What are we waiting for?” Biden said following the shooting. “What else do we need to see? How many more families need to be torn apart? We know what we have to do. We just need the courage to do it.”
Even a Kansas City Chief player got in on the anti-gun action.
“Prayers for those affected at today’s parade,” Charles Omenihu said in an X post. “A time of celebration ends in tragedy. When are we going to fix these gun laws? How many more people have to die to say enough is enough?”
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What Omenihu, Biden and the “mainstream” media won’t tell you is there are already laws against opening fire at a parade and wounding and killing people. In fact, there’s no place in America that such an attack is not considered a serious felony. What they also won’t tell you is that Lyndell Mays, the guy who pulled his gun and started shooting at others he thought were wanting to kill him, shouldn’t have been at the parade in the first place. Had prosecutors simply convicted and imprisoned Mays the first time he broke the state’s gun laws, the parade shooting never would have happened.
In 2021, Mays pulled his gun after an argument over a basketball game at the Belton Community Center, causing people to run out of the gym, screaming in fear. At the time, he was charged in municipal court with disorderly conduct, plead guilty and spent only five days in jail, with another two years of probation. However, under Missouri’s law barring “Unlawful Use of A Weapon,” one of the definitions of violating that law is: “Exhibits or displays a lethal weapon in an angry or threatening manner in front of one or more persons.” According to the state’s legal code, the most common penalty for weapons charges in Missouri is a class D felony, punishable by up to one year or 4 years in prison and fines up to $5,000.
As Biden and gun-banning city officials continue to cry for more and stricter gun control laws, perhaps citizens of Kansas City would be better served if people who use their firearms in an illegal manner receive a legitimate prison sentence instead of a slap on the wrist from liberal prosecutors and quick release by a revolving door justice system that serves prisoners better than lawful residents.
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About the Author Freelance writer and editor Mark Chesnut is the owner/editorial director at Red Setter Communications LLC. An avid hunter, shooter and political observer, he has been covering Second Amendment issues and politics on a near-daily basis for nearly 25 years.
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