A 14-year-old boy allegedly fatally shot his older sister in Florida after a family argument over Christmas presents, officials said Tuesday.
The teen had been out shopping on Christmas Eve with Abrielle Baldwin, his 23-year-old sister, as well as his mother, 15-year-old brother and sister’s children, Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said during a news conference.
The teenage brothers got into an argument about who was getting more Christmas presents.
“They had this family spat about who was getting what and what money was being spent on who, and they were having this big thing going on in this store,” Gualtieri said.
Imagine applying that logic to anything else:
“He would have been murdered regardless of what laws were in place. There’s no reason to change the penalty for murder! The 10c fine already ensures that only criminals will murder other people.”
“The city already has a firefighter, and the city block still burned down! What’s the point in adding more firefighters if we already have a firefighter and we still get major fires?”
…
The kids got the guns illegally because it’s incredibly easy to get illegal guns in the US. The biggest reason for that is that it’s so incredibly easy to get legal guns too. In places like Japan or England where it’s hard to get legal guns, it’s extremely hard to get illegal guns, so the criminals tend not to use illegal guns.
If “would have done so regardless” were true, there should be no difference in gun crime in the UK vs the US. But, they’re not. It’s not because the US has far more of a problem with mental illness or something, it’s because the tool designed for killing is harder to get.