People with semiautomatic weapons kill more people

The FedEx murderer was able to legally purchase two semiautomatic rifles after his shotgun was seized because of the danger he posed to himself and others:

…the 19-year-old who the police say fatally shot eight people at a FedEx facility on Thursday night, legally purchased two semiautomatic rifles he used in the attack more than six months earlier, according to the chief of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department.

In March of 2020, the police had seized a shotgun from Mr. XXXX after his mother raised concerns about his mental state, records show. But, Chief Randal Taylor said, the fact that Mr. XXXX was legally able to make the more recent gun purchases indicates that, despite his mother’s warning and the police seizure of a gun, the authorities had not deemed him subject to Indiana’s so-called “red flag” law, which bars people who are found by a judge to present dangerous risk from possessing a firearm.

Under the state’s longstanding red flag law, the authorities have two weeks after taking someone’s weapon to argue before a judge that the person is unstable and should be barred from possessing a gun for a period of time. But Chief Taylor was unsure whether a hearing like that ever took place — even though the police never returned the shotgun they had seized last year.

This should be a moot point because no civilian should be able to own a semiautomatic rifle, but it’s still infuriating that multiple lives could have been saved with the legal framework already in place.