The headlines get your attention. But it’s not really a school shooting; it’s a shooting at a school. Albeit, a college campus.
On October 29, 2023, there was a shooting at Worcester State University in Worcester, Mass. The alleged murderer is 18 years old. There were two shooting victims, one died and the other was taken into custody and had charges brought against him for illegal possession of a firearm.
The bill proposed by State Representative Michael Day back in June, then changed in October three times with a different number each time, will not and would not, have stopped this from happening. Nothing in the new bill (HD. 4420, then 4607, 4135, and now 4138) that passed the Mass. House would prevent this. The new bill goes after the lawful gun owners, not this murderer. Items in the bill require more training, including a written exam, live fire, de-escalation and disengagement tactics, and active shooter training, all just to get a license to possess. There’s also provisions requiring the engraving of serial numbers on magazines, and registration of all firearms and magazines.
As a matter of fact, none of the Massachusetts gun laws stopped this from happening. Worcester State is a college and therefore a gun free zone. The murderer doesn’t have a license to carry or possess handguns, let alone a firearms identification card, license to possess non-large capacity rifles or shotguns. I am assuming he used a handgun and not a large capacity rifle or shotgun. This lack of credentials also means he shouldn’t have had ammunition as well.
Murder, of course, is also illegal in Massachusetts and federally. And if you’re a Christian, against one of the Ten Commandments, too.
They reported that this is not a “random incident.” That’s news speak for something like the murderer knew the victim, was a scorned lover, or it was gang activity. This time it sounds like gang activity – which overwhelmingly seems to be the case in most similar incidents.
District Attorney Joseph Early Jr. said that at about 2:30 a.m. Saturday, Worcester State University police received calls about a fight in progress in a parking lot on campus. Responding officers found two people had been shot when they arrived at the scene.
This story gives us everything we talk about as gun owners about why the laws don’t work. We’ve got an 18-year-old getting what I presume is a handgun. That’s an illegal purchase somewhere other than a FFL gun dealer. Even if someone under 20 could possess a handgun, say from a personal transfer, both parties would still need a Mass. LTC. There’s the fact this occured at a gun free school zone. There’s getting shot by someone you know, as in gang activity. The survivor of the gun shots also possessed a firearm illegally. And the headlines of a “school shooting” when it was a shooting on school grounds.
Be honest… you probably thought this was a shooting inside a school against elementary aged students during school hours. It wasn’t. It was gang activity that happened to spill over onto a college campus parking lot. That area of Worcester is an intersection of May Street and Chandler Street, which is a very busy area.
Neither one of them are Worcester State University students. With regards to this, both assailants and [victims] are not university students,” the district attorney said. “Although this occurred on campus, again, they are not university students.
Early said the shooting does not appear to be a random act of violence, and that the parties involved were believed to be known to each other.
Which this reminds me, if you’re a Mass. resident, you need to write to your local politician and tell your senator to not support the Senate version of H.4139. The bill wants to make sure you don’t have access to your self-defense gun, that you can’t afford training to get the LTC, and make sure that everywhere is a gun free zone. The same kind of impotent gun free zone that someone who had a gun illegally came down from Lawrence to shoot someone he was mad at who was at Worcester State.
