Passionate Young Voice for ‘Commonsense Gun Safety Laws’ Speaks from Experience

Romano’s not the first criminal — or school shooter for that matter — to agree with the gun-grabbers. (Albany Times Union – Facebook)

USA – -(Ammoland.com)- “I believe the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL are courageous and inspiring for speaking out and demanding action from politicians,” a letter to the editor of Albany’s Times Union from reader Jon Romano advocates. “Everyone nationwide should follow and accept nothing less than meaningful, life-saving policy changes from their representatives. Only then could this generation be the last generation that lives in a nation plagued by gun violence.”

The writer is one Jon Romano, and he lists his address as the Coxsackie Correctional Facility. Romano was a wannabe school shooter, who “brought a pump-action shotgun to Columbia High School in East Greenbush” in 2004 when he was 16 and began firing, hitting one teacher in the leg before the principal tackled and disarmed him.

That’s quite the “commonsense gun safety” advocate, is it not?

Romano was convicted of attempted murder and reckless endangerment, the Times Union notes, and will be up for parole in March 2021. He says he wants “to advocate for gun safety and mental health reform” when he gets out.

He’s hardly the first criminal to call for citizen disarmament in the wake of his own aberrant behavior.

Robyn Anderson testified before the Colorado House Judiciary hearing, Anderson claimed that background checks would serve to inhibit gun purchases–not by criminals, but by people who would pass such checks! She had also acted as a straw purchaser for Columbine killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, knowingly buying guns for minors who would not have passed a check. Yet she was credited with “turning the tide” to pass a gun show background check expansion bill affecting those who would.

Mark Manes also now wants nothing to do with firearms, admitting his mom, a long-time Handgun Control, Inc., activist, was “really right all along” when she warned him against having anything to do with guns. Curiously, that change in attitude only came after he was sentenced to a six-year term for his role in providing Harris and Klebold with a TEC-DC9 pistol and two 50-round boxes of ammunition.

Then there’s Barbara Graham, who believed so strongly in gun control, she became active in a group that helped sponsor the Million Morn March’s Washington DC rally, where she “spoke out … and helped memorialize the dead.”  But DC’s gun bans didn’t stop Graham from obtaining a .45 caliber handgun, and paralyzing a man she mistakenly thought had killed her son.

Annette Stevens was so against guns she became president of the Springfield, Illinois, chapter of the Million Mom March, where she played a leadership role in advancing that group’s anti-gun agenda. Yet when police executed a search warrant related to recent drive-by shootings, they reportedly found illegal drugs and a handgun–for which she did not have a state-required Firearms Owner Identification card. Press reports said the serial number had been filed off the gun, another violation.

Amy Fisher wrote a newspaper column where she called for more gun control laws.

“Assault weapons were designed for military use,” she declared in support of extending the federal ban, even though none of the weapons affected have select-fire capabilities. “If a law-abiding citizen has such a yearning to possess one of these weapons, then let that person join the Marines.”

Fisher, of course, gained national notoriety in 1992 as “the Long Island Lolita,” after shooting her lover’s defenseless wife in the head.

My “favorite” bit of anti-gun advocacy from all of these, though, came from a high school student who agreed with everything Emma Gonzales, David Hogg, Cameron Kasky and their adult handlers and bankrollers say about guns in schools.

“Students who bring guns to school are hardly ever detected,” he wrote in an assignment paper. “This is shocking to most parents and even other students since it is just as easy to bring a loaded handgun to school as it is to bring a calculator.”

“A school is no place for a gun,” he concluded.

The author was Columbine killer Eric Harris, who chose “Guns in Schools” for his report topic. It’s not hard to see why he would favor “gun-free school zones.”

Harris had a chance to test his theoretical preference for disarmed victims in the real world. As CNN reported at the time on his encounter with Columbine’s community resource officer, “[Sheriff’s Deputy Neil] Gardner, seeing Harris working with his gun, leaned over the top of the car and fired four shots … After the exchange of gunfire, Harris ran back into the building.”

And providing inspiration to Broward County “first responders,” Gardner remained outside. Still, he proved a point. Because unlike with his other targets, Harris did not pursue and try to finish off someone capable of returning lethal force. He fled to pursue helpless prey. The lesson here could not be clearer. Rather than being “no place for a gun,” firearms in schools, deployed by moral people who know what they’re doing, can protect the innocent and repel evil. Or at least give the victims a choice and a fighting chance.

Back to this Romano character, who hopes to become a voice-of-experience gun-grabber if he ever makes it back to being trusted without a custodian: Look pal, I’m sorry you messed up your life. I’m sorry you were so twisted and evil you thought murdering people indiscriminately would be an option for dealing with your utter unfitness to live among your fellow human beings.

But the fact is, some things are broken and they can’t be fixed. And no one can say with empirical certainty that Romano can be or has been and that he’s not just saying this because he hopes to game the parole board by scamming their “progressive” sympathies. Sorry, but some things are just so deranged and evil, and the state of the art at dealing with them is so uncertain and primitive, that letting him out of his cage makes as much sense as opening a man-eating tiger’s and telling it to go out and maul no more.

Romano knew going into that school that the chances of anyone returning fire were nil. It’s only due to the grace of God combined with the courage of a principal and the would-be killer’s own cowardly incompetence that he failed to achieve the child death toll he craved. It’s not surprising that he agrees with a citizen disarmament lobby, or more accurately, that they agree with him in terms of preferring defenseless victims.

The bottom line: I don’t care if he’s a former predator, a “reformed” predator or one of the enablers. He wants me and mine disarmed and defenseless?

No.

The longer response to them all is two words.

That goes for this failed school shooter, for Bloomberg, for Democrat gun-grabbing politicians, for Republican Quislings, for oath-breaking political police officials and the jackbooted thugs they send hither, for vacuous Hollywood dilettantes, for anti-gun “progressives” of all stripes, for media propagandists, for the useful idiot manufactured rock star “kids” that play better to the cameras than Demanding Mom cat ladies, to the Pajama Boys and to any other domestic enemy who would dare “advocate” for disarming their countrymen.

We will not disarm. Deal with it.

Or deal with us.


About David Codrea:David Codrea

David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating / defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament.

In addition to being a field editor/columnist at GUNS Magazine and associate editor for Oath Keepers, he blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.

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Aardvark

I wasn’t sure about this article by the title, but as I started reading, it got better and better. Great job of pointing out the criminals that call for MORE gun restrictions rather than allowing law abiding and well trained teachers or guards to defend the kids. The one addition I would have added to your article is the hypocrite criminal Leland Yee, the Kalifornia senator that was a huge gun grabber advocate, that was found guilty of illegal arms dealing. Just shows that criminals with guns really DON’T want the citizens armed.

nicephotog

(note: Stephen Paddock – USA / Dr Shipman UK totals) A little like what i was saying in the other comment, here is a list of serial killers that did not use firearms and often they are negligible to their methods. There are many more alike these ones below, a firearm being little use and non existent, but many “serial killers too many to mention”, get kill totals without a firearm that make the fact that Stephen Paddock in Las Vegas achieved as a total an irrelevant point ! List of just a few reasonable or good examples of “non… Read more »

Jim Macklin

Despite medical help being delayed, 45% of the wounded survived solid hits to the body. The typical 69 caliber 500-750 grain slug used in te Civil War killed many outright. Infections and crude surgery killed even more soldiers on the battlefield..

The 52 grain way under stabilized Vietnam war M16/5.56 had bullets breaking apart and tumbling. The AR/M16 5.56 today is a 62-77 grain bullet that does not have the terminal effect of 50 years ago. But it is longer ranged and more accurate .

Bryan StMartin

FCC Does what? It’s my understanding that a falsehood transmitted over the open airwaves and this can cover fiberoptic, (because their interface nodes are detectable), is a felony. Fines on this alone could reset the national deficit.

Tionico

And the StupidParty (with either Letter prefixing their name) continues to scream for our disarmament. Just think… if that noble hero Mr. Aaron Feis had been armed as he came close enough to the shooter at Parkand Hi for the shooter to fire at Mr. Feis, I’ve no doubt we’d have read a brief article about some stupid kid got his cranium ventilated as he attempted to kill some of the students trapped inside that building. We’d not have lost a dedicated adult who dearly loved his chaarges, to the point he literally laid HIS life down for soe of… Read more »

Tionico

Well, David, you’ve dne it again. I never bother to read the byline before diving into an article, so I did not KNOW you are the author of this one. But, as always, within the forst two paragraphs I did not have to read who wrote this piece. You have a way of goingout, finding all the relevant ducks, lining themnall up nice and straight, and with one or two rounds knock ’em all down. The background on some of the other killers was insightful, and some of the specific details as well. I had not known those details about… Read more »

Bryan StMartin

Apparently Hollywood just wasn’t getting the job done, so the extrovert’s decided to do a bit of “staging” to prove their point. Earliest was Ok City, and Waco, I would bet Unabomber is theirs too, every mass shooting, school shooting, corporate shooting, etc, was to put guns as the bad guy. But the bad guys are in every facet of our lives. We do not earn nor spend a penny without them making a profit. Let us scrutinize those who represent us. Starting with those we elected ourselves. Lest we become hypocrites. But hopefully provide a fair model to gage… Read more »

Scott

Amen, Mr. Codrea.

freewill

if our founders were here today, the 1792 Militia act would be updated to have an AR-15

Jim Macklin

That is precisely what the 1939 MILLER Court said the Second Amendment says as written.

As for punishment, sometimes there is a question of absolute proof vs. beyond reasonable doubt. In te case of the young adult in Parkland the death penalty is appropriate.
When there is any doubt the death penalty is not appropriate.

Bryan StMartin

Absolutely! But if they were around back then, some of my distant cousins wouldn’t be around. My ancestral Uncle Alexis St.Martin was shot (friendly fire) when a soldier nodded off and dropped his musket, causing it to fire directly into me ol’ uncle’s stomach. Fortunately a Physician studying digestive systems in animals got word and took Alexis in and helped heal his wounds, while gathering tremendous insight into the human digestive system. Had it been an AR15 at 15′, sorry Cuz…

Paul Short

Hmmm, seems that all criminals want less guns to contend with while conducting “business”…..

Douglas Kuykendall

Yea there should be a few more bullets used,a waste of taxpayers money to keep these little bastards.It,s all how your raised an America is going down hill fast these days.When I was growing up an Going to school at times there was a gun in the back window on a gun rack.Nothing was ever thought about it.What has happened in 40 years?The way you are raised that’s it

JESSE

It’s not the GUNS, it’s a mental problem. One thing I’m not hearing is why they did it. Was they BULLIED at school by parents. Was it video games, movies, or just want to be noticed. WHY DID YOU DO IT!

Rock

He’s the shooter, and is pushing for gun control ????
Uhhhhh, the weapon would have done NOTHING without HIM picking it up. “I” believe we need criminal control, EXECUTE HIM ! $40.00 a day to keep this piece of certified SHIT in prison for life. NO……………………….He is 100% guilty, ELIMINATE HIM NOW !

Ross Campbell

Give him Bubba for life.

Jim Macklin

This article and the letter of remorse is 30 minutes of fame that will encourage the next “troubled youth” to take a gun to school to shoot people.

MB

One more bullet needed to be expended. Right in his head. Now we have to pay to keep this POS alive, well feed, healthy, coddle his desire to go transgender and then pay for that too if that is what he wants. And we have to for the next 60-80 years. Arm the teachers, the administrators, the janitors, the coaches and of course the school resource office, teach them to shoot and be done with POS’s like this.

nicephotog

Of the above article, another way of seeing… Long back in time, “the ethos behind use and keeping firearms as an undeniable right” has been understood in its final terms. It points that any utterance against keeping a weapon for self defense is only ever committed by a coward as vile as real child-molesters (not some disheveled inappropriate lunatic such as a pedophile ), fit only to be represented as being a true traitor, not merely in a nation but against life itself and the world around. There are many criminals whom commit torture of a victim, and their type… Read more »

trumped

Great article. Sociopaths of all types – both run of the mill criminals and politicians – sure seem to have a vested interest in disarming the general public.

James Higginbotham

they will keep it up until they COMMIT SUICIDE, WITH OUR HELP OF COURSE.
our 2ND AMENDMENT IS FOR A TIME LIKE TODAY.

White Rose

The current pursuit to find fault with guns ref. current events in a Florida school seeks a simple solution by simple minded individuals for a complex problem. Violence in any form that it manifests results from a multitude of causes within a dynamic & ever changing social environment. All of this current issue ref. guns must be understood within the framework of our Constitution, which I love, and that portion of it known as the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights is scripted as a counter leverage to the other aspect of our Constitution, which deals with the procedural… Read more »

freewill

@ White Rose…theres no reason to believe the 2nd Amend. gives government any authority what so-ever as in well regulated when the other 9 protects us from government, the dictionary defines regulate as…to adjust to a particular standard, rate, degree amount..and the 1792 militia act is further proof of an armed citizenry.