Another Day Another Shooting

Every time news like this arrives I wonder what effect any of the proposals to diminish gun violence might have had.

Taylor Jade, a 12-year-old girl allegedly shot by her cousin’s ex-boyfriend at an eastern Kentucky College has died of her injuries.

Taylor was shot Tuesday, along with her father and her female cousin, 20-year-old Caitlin Cornett,  in the parking lot of Hazard Community and Technical College.

 Police said 21-year-old Dalton Stidham was charged with murder and attempted murder in the case.

Hazard police Chief Minor Allen said the shooting resulted from a dispute between Stidham and Cornett.

MSN News

Now, according to NRA fantasy, had Caitlin had a gun, in this case being the ‘good guy,’ the killing would have been of the ‘bad guy.’ Or not.  [In fact, how on earth would anyone know who was good and who was bad in such a case?  Let the guns decide? Like witch hunting of old: if you die of the punishment your guilt is proved.]

It was a custody case. Had neither had guns there might have been strong words.   There might have been pushing and shoving. Her uncle, there at the scene, might have had a chance to intervene.

With both armed (the fantasy) presumably both would have known the other was armed and invoking the ‘right of self defense’ would have been ready to the max:  hands on pistol handles while talking, or perhaps approaching with guns in hand….

Did Stidham have any kind of mental disorder that, under the new Executive Order,  might have, remotely, been discovered and his gun either a) never purchased because denied or b) taken from him because local police got a ‘disturbed man with guns’ dispatch?

Did he obtain the gun legally? If not, how did he obtain it?

Is there anything sort of very very strong prohibitions on guns that might have prevented this killing of another child?

Probably not.  Granted this is a family dispute, and since only two are dead does not make the mass-slaughter databases.  Are these two deaths then just another few chips on the pile we are willing to pay for the right to have lethal toys?