Friend of Dayton Gunman Arrested On Federal Gun Charges

While much of the press is still fixated on El Paso, Americans still haven’t forgotten about Dayton. Not just yet anyway.

On Monday, police made an arrest in their investigation into the deadly shooting that left nine dead and 20 injured in the second mass shooting of that weekend. The arrest was of a friend of the gunman in the attack.

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A friend of the man who police say opened fire in a Dayton, Ohio, entertainment district, killing nine people, will face federal charges, multiple news outlets reported Monday.

The mass shooting in Dayton occurred less than a day after another shooting in El Paso, Texas, and reignited the national debate over gun control.

[Ethan] Kollie was arrested on Friday and is now being charged with lying on federal firearms forms and illegally possessing weapons.

In other words, it doesn’t look like actually is charged with playing a role in the attack, despite the impression given by many in the media. However, his own alleged lying on federal gun forms, coupled with his statements about the shooter, suggests that the killer didn’t buy his guns quite so legally after all.

During a second interview with Kollie on Aug. 8 he revealed that he had done “hard drugs,” marijuana and acid four to five times a week with [the killer] during 2014 and 2015 and continued to use such substances.

Of course, the Form 4473 asks if you use any illicit substances. Clearly, the killer checked “no,” committing perjury in the process. That right there makes it an illegal purchase of a firearm.

Yet again, gun control failed.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. Lying on the 4473 isn’t exactly rocket science. We’re not talking about master criminals here.

However, the reason we have to ask the question on the form in the first place is to supposedly try and prevent drug users from purchasing firearms through legal channels, right? How did that work out?

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Then, this maniac decides to take the firearm he purchased from a lawful gun dealer and shoot up an outdoor bar, killing his sister and eight other people in the process. Once again, the bit of gun control that requires gun sellers to ask if someone uses drugs doesn’t really do much of anything except create a barrier for law-abiding citizens to get guns.

Now, beyond that, it seems that Kollie had no role in the attack itself. That seemed to be all planned and carried out by the gunman without the help of his good friend.

The friend is going to probably spend some time in prison, but at the very least is going to end up with a felony conviction, making him a prohibited person from now until the end of time.

The real shame in this is that the same couldn’t have happened to his buddy before nine innocent people lost their lives and a lot more had their lives shattered because of his deranged act. But, then again, there’s little reason to believe he wouldn’t have gotten his hands on a gun either way and still carried out such a heinous act.

It’s not like gun control worked this time as it was, why would another bit of gun control work any better?

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