This is how conspiracy theories kill, why Right-Wing domestic terrorists are the greatest threat to this nation’s peace, and why we need to ban a weapon of war off the streets. According to Mediaite:

NBC News’s Ryan J. Reilly reported from court documents that Michigan’s Neil Walter had:

“Facebook posts had numerous comments stating beliefs that half the Senators, the FBI, CIA, police, Tom Cruise, and Elon Musk are involved in a child slave rape ring,”

"it was noted that Walter’s public
Facebook posts had numerous comments stating beliefs that half the Senators, the FBI, CIA, police, Tom Cruise, and Elon Musk are involved in a child slave rape
ring…" https://t.co/JX8MCqqJ0Y pic.twitter.com/kxcesvb3Pi

— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) November 22, 2022

The news broke while MSNBC’s Chris Jansing had former Asst. FBI Director Frank Figliuzzi on the air and Figliuzzi was most troubled by the fact that Walter had a record and no red flag laws were followed to at least remove Walter’s guns:

And then in a troubling fashion, you know, we were talking earlier about red flag laws. In the affidavit from the FBI agent, it references that when they checked this guy out after these threats to literally directly kill the FBI director and a U.S. congressman, they found the FBI that there were weapons registered to this individual. Again, that’s an individual who presumably is reported to have repeated involuntary commitments for mental health issues.

So this raises once again, Chris, who has guns? What are we doing about people who shouldn’t have guns, who are still in possession of those guns with mental health and other law enforcement concerns? So, yes, good news. This person’s in custody. He used social media and to threaten literally on the FBI’s Facebook page to kill the director of the FBI and then left voicemail messages and phone calls at the congressman’s office in the District of Columbia.

It is impossible to know

how much danger Director Wray and the Congressman were actually in, and whether this guy was capable of following up on a threat. What we can surely know is that the laws put in place to supposedly protect us from the wrong people having firearms are not being enforced, not in Colorado Springs and not here.

And that is exactly the way the gun manufacturers want it. So long as their product is moving, ensuring that the country faces an increasing number of mass shootings with ever more powerful weapons, they are making money and happy.

President Biden’s proposed ban on assault rifles of the AR-15 type is the biggest threat to gun manufacturers right now because they are the most popular selling rifle in the United States. They had been banned in the 1994 crime bill, but the ban sunsetted in 2004.

Since that time, you will notice that our mass shootings have risen from six, nine, or a similar number to 22, 49, 57. The AR-15 is meant to be a military tool, it is basically the M-16, used to put as many enemies down as quickly as possible, for good. If you are shot in the pelvis by a handgun, you’ll likely survive. The AR-15’s round shoots at a velocity three to four times faster and thus has far more momentum and does far more damage to whatever it hits. A shot in the pelvis is likely fatal.

Red flag laws will not work if they are not enforced. And the situation is made much worse by the fact that the gun these people most likely possess is that much more lethal. It sounds absurd, “Our mass shootings can go down from thirty-one dead to nine.” And it is ridiculous, but it would mean everything to twenty-two people.

But in this case, the system worked. It is just as important to publicize those cases where law enforcement is successful as it is when not.

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[email protected], @JasonMiciak, with Nicole Hickman