Colin McNickle Left Something Out

Hardly surprising, considering that he writes for the Tribune-Review.

Take a look at this:

Lots of people were making lots of U-turns here Saturday on southbound Route 19 just past Ace Sporting Goods. And lots more northbounders were parking on the wide berm just waiting to get into the parking lot of the popular gun shop.

It was another afternoon of what‘s become the new norm at Ace, known for its wide selection of handguns and rifles...

Know what else this Ace Sporting Goods store is known (or should be known) for?

Take a look at this from September 7, 2001:

First of all, we know Mr. Baumhammers traveled to Ace Sporting Goods in Washington, Pa., April 30, 1999 and for $528 purchased a Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum Revolver, the murder weapon.

Nine days later, just nine days after buying a handgun, Richard Scott Baumhammers was voluntarily mentally committed to St. Clair Hospital, agreeing he was mentally disabled and in need of treatment.

And then almost exactly a year after that (on April 28, 2000) he took that Smith and Wesson and went on an "unhurried, methodical" shooting spree - killing five and maiming one.

So I am wondering how many in the crowd McNickle described knew that they were frequenting the very same establishment where Baumhammers plunked down his five twenty-eight for his three fifty seven.

And if they knew, would it make any difference?

Because the price of this "freedom" to stockpile firearms (out of a "paranoid fear of a possible dystopic future") will be that eventually some nutcase will shoot up yet another school yard or shopping mall - and someone else's kids or siblings or loved ones or parents will die horribly because of it.

It's as simple as that.  Yay, 2nd Amendment.  Yay, NRA.