“I am sorry but the kid could have bought his gun anywhere in Virginia”
Roanoke. “Guns!” The driver of the red car slowly driving by Roanoke Firearms does not stop to shouts his support for John Markell, the shop owner. In front of his store, where Seung-hui Cho bought in March one of the two semi-automatic guns he used to kill 32 people at Virginia Tech on April 16, Mr Markell speaks of an “unremarkable” sale and defends himself: “I am sorry but the kid could have bought his gun anywhere in Virginia, he says. There was no way I could have known he would do something like this. I don’t take guns lightly and I am very careful. The kid was calm. He came with the three pieces of ID he needed and passed the background check”. Roanoke Firearms is in the suburbs of Roanoke, the main town in Southwest Virginia. To buy his gun, Mr. Cho had to drive about 40 miles from the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg. The store has been in business for 8 years. According to its owner, it has sold 16000 firearms, 7 of which were used in violent deaths. The Virginia Tech massacre does not change anything for John Markell: “The second amendment of our Constitution (that gives the right to bear arms) was a good idea 200 years ago, it is still a good idea today, Mr Markell says. It was meant to protect other amendments. I do not see what happened at Virginia Tech as an excuse to take guns away”. “To change the laws, would not have changed anything”, Mr Markell adds. “The kid broke a lot of laws. He did not comply with the law that prohibited guns on campus. And it did not prevent him from shooting all these people. The law actually made it worse. Imagine 25 000 unarmed students facing an armed murderer. They had no way to defend themselves and it turned the campus into a killing field”. Mr Cho, who paid the $571 for the gun by credit card, only needed a few minutes to buy his Glock 9mm. In Virginia, any citizen who provides three pieces of ID and passes a quick background check, can purchase a gun in less than 30 minutes. Until 1998, there a 5-day waiting period at the federal level but the US Congress allowed it to expire. Nowadays, each state sets its own standards. Virginia got rid of the waiting period. John Markell is a member of the National Rifle Association (NRA) and of the Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL), two non-profit groups for the promotion of firearms rights. With its 4,3 million members, the NRA is considered to be one of the most influential lobbies in Washington. The group based in Virginia and headed by a woman, is especially active during presidential elections and is able to deliver a large number of votes. Some experts credit the NRA with helping George Bush beat Al Gore. At the time, the former vice-president had promoted the idea of a federal register for firearms. This idea was abandoned. In 2004, the NRA launched NRA News, his multimedia wing. The NRA is now facing stiff competition form Gun Owners of America (GOA). “A very good group” as John Markell says. The shop owner now fears that democrats will try to make it harder for citizens to buy semi-automatic rifles: “If they manage to do it, I will go out of business”. Jean-Cosme Delaloye / Roanoke A similar version of this story was published on April 19 in 24heures and Tribune de Genève in Switzerland CommentsYou must be logged in to post a comment. |
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