As you may recall, a ghost gun was used in last week’s shooting at Magruder High School in Maryland. 17-year-old Steven Alston Jr. is accused of shooting a 15-year-old student in one of the school’s bathrooms this past Friday. Again, for those of you who may not be familiar with the concept of ghost guns, they are guns that are assembled from parts that can be obtained through the mail. These guns have no serial numbers and are not subject to background checks. Only ten states have laws regulating ghost guns, and only three of those ten ban them outright. Maryland is not one of those ten states.
In my previous post about the Magruder High shooting, I wondered if the gun used was assembled by Alston or if he obtained it somewhere else. I asked that because Montgomery County schools have turned up five ghost guns in their schools recently. Police are now saying that Alston allegedly told them he assembled the gun at home. According to police, the three parts used to assemble the gun were delivered to Alston’s home and that Alston had purchased the parts himself. Remember, Alston is 17-years-old. That’s too young to own a gun in Maryland, but I’m sure the ‘responsible gun owners™’ have an excuse as to why they consider ghost guns necessary.
As for the shooting itself, it’s believed that Alston put the gun to the victim’s head. When the victim pushed the gun away, Alston allegedly shot the victim in the pelvis. After the school went into lockdown, Alston was found with the disassembled gun nearby and a partially loaded magazine in his sock. The shooting is believed to have stemmed from an ongoing dispute between Alston and the victim. As of this past Monday, the victim was still in critical condition.
Another disturbing thing that happened in the wake of the shooting is that not only were there said to be multiple witnesses to the shooting, but many of the witnesses tweeted about the shooting instead of calling 911 or informing school staff. Now yes, that is something that is truly repulsive that some of the witnesses cared that little about the victim’s life. However, this shouldn’t be attributed to a ‘kids and social media’ thing. Sadly, witnesses have been ignoring victims for years. If social media was around at the time of the murder of Kitty Genovese, some neighbor probably would have tweeted (and excuse my language here) ‘I wish this dyke bitch would stop screaming’.
But getting back to Alston, he has been charged as an adult, but is currently being held in a juvenile facility. His attorney argued for Alston being held under house arrest since he has no previous criminal record, but this was denied by a judge.
Yeah, you don’t get to go home after shooting someone and leaving them to bleed out.
(Sources)
Real Crime with Trench Reynolds 