There are still a number of important questions about the mass shooting in Erie, Pennsylvania over the weekend, where a 45-year-old man described as the patriarch of his family murdered eight of them, including two children and an unborn child, as well as a friend of one of the victims, before taking his own life.
Police have said the .40 caliber handgun used by the killer was "registered" to him, but Pennsylvania doesn't have formal firearms registration. Instead, the Pennsylvania State Police maintain a database of handgun purchasers using dealer sales records. Presumably, that means the killer lawfully acquired and possessed the handgun, though authorities haven't said when the gun was purchased or if it was the only firearm he owned.
Authorities also haven't revealed if the killer had any kind of mental health history, though one neighbor says the murderer “was a good guy," but "he started going downhill with everything.”
What she meant by "everything" is also unknown, at least publicly.
While most people are still searching for answers about why this horrific attack was carried out by a man who didn't seem to have raised any red flags, one local pastor is calling on local lawmakers to adopt more gun control measures in response.
Archbishop Dwane Brock, the leader of Eagles Nest Corp. and East Side Renaissance, has seen a lot in his 47 years as an Erie pastor.
He's witnessed the aftermath of far too many shootings that have claimed the lives of police officers, children, even the elderly.
But the Oct. 9 shooting on Erie's east side that claimed the lives of nine people and an unborn child is unprecedented, he said.
"We are going to have to have a conversation about gun control," he said. "It's inevitable. I know it's controversial and whatever the case. But we can't have it keep going on in this way and having a lack of character and people solving differences in violent ways, and that's not even adding in the mental health aspect."
Brock isn't suggesting what form that conversation should take, but he thinks it's a worthy topic of discussion for both Erie County Council and Erie City Council.
I'm sure Brock means well, but if he thinks it's up to city and county authorities to implement more gun control laws of any kind, he needs to freshen up on Pennsylvania's firearm preemption statute.
I don't think more gun control is the answer here, and I think it's pretty revealing that Brock himself isn't suggesting any particular policy, but the county and city councils aren't the bodies where that conversation would take place. Under the state's preemption law, it's up to the state legislature to adopt any laws regulating lawful ownership, possession, transfer, or transportation of firearms, ammunition, or ammunition components.
Brock knows some might accuse him of politicizing a tragedy with talk about controlling who buys and owns guns.
He's OK with that.
"Politics runs everybody's life," Brock said. "You think about it, whether its the water department or energy or oil or what is going on with the farms. I don't think we want to think of it like that, but it does."
It's why we elect people to represent our views, he said.
"I don't think we are politicizing the issue, but it's an issue we have to sit down and talk about."
If Brock wants to have that conversation, much less lead it, then he should at least know who he should be talking to. And yes, I believe if he wants that conversation to be about gun control, he should at least have some specific policy in mind. Does he want a handgun ban? A "red flag" law? What law, exactly, could have prevented this mass murder?
While Brock led with gun control, he says there also needs to be a discussion about mental health issues, telling the local paper that "it's not a sigh of weakness to seek help." That's very true, but if reaching out for help can result in the loss of your ability to own a firearm, then that makes it less likely that gun owners will ask for help when they could use it.
Brock isn't entirely sure what the next step will be, but vowed that he wants to be part of the conversation.
He hopes that some good can come from something so terrible, but would never suggest it's part of some grand plan.
"It doesn't make sense," he said. "This is not God's plan. It's not God's doing. It's evil and it must be dealt with."
Personally, I think that's where Brock should focus both his rhetoric and his actions. What happened at that home in Erie was evil, and I don't believe it can be addressed through gun control or even calls for de-stigmatizing mental health. Whatever this murderer was struggling with, I believe there must have been a sickness in the soul to take the lives of so many people that he supposedly loved and cared for. And as a man of faith, if Brock is equipped to lead any conversation it's the one about God's love and the evil that's present in this world, not what additional gun control laws might have prevented these evil acts from taking place.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their extreme gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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