BELLEVUE, WA – The man responsible for murdering three Michigan State University students and wounding five others should have been behind bars, but instead was free because of a reduced charge on a plea deal, a fact that should outrage not just gun owners, but everyone in the country, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.
“Published reports say Anthony McRae was arrested on a felony gun law violation in 2019,” noted CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “However, a few months later he was arrested a second time on a less serious gun-related crime and was allowed to enter a guilty plea on the misdemeanor charge while the felony charge was dismissed. He spent a total of 18 months on probation, but was allowed to retain his gun rights. Instead of being incarcerated, where he could harm nobody, it appears he was allowed to escape imprisonment thanks to a lenient prosecutor.
“It’s not just soft judges who make hardened criminals,” he observed. “It’s also soft-in-the-head progressive prosecutors.
“Various published reports have revealed McRae’s past brushes with the law,” Gottlieb continued. “Let’s look at the facts. Guns are prohibited on the MSU campus, yet there he was with a firearm. There’s a law against murder in Michigan, and he committed three of them. What makes anybody think passing more laws will prevent the next madman from doing the same thing?
“This senseless incident is already being exploited by anti-gunners who want to use McRae’s evil act to justify new restrictions on millions of law-abiding Americans who are just as shocked and heartbroken as anyone,” Gottlieb stated. “Had existing laws been enforced more than three years ago, this crime might never have happened because, at the very least, McRae would have been unable to legally own or possess a firearm.
“We’re tired of gun-hating, headline-grabbing politicians racing to the nearest microphone to push their anti-rights agenda every time a criminal or deranged individual commits a violent crime,” he added. “That’s not justice, it’s political grandstanding designed to penalize people who had nothing to do with the crime. Passing new laws that only impact honest citizens creates the false impression something has been done to prevent a similar crime in the future. At the very least, it’s dishonest.”
With more than 650,000 members and supporters nationwide, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (www.ccrkba.org) is one of the nation’s premier gun rights organizations. As a non-profit organization, the Citizens Committee is dedicated to preserving firearms freedoms through active lobbying of elected officials and facilitating grass-roots organization of gun rights activists in local communities throughout the United States.
