One of the Latest Local Horrors: Father of Five Gunned Down at Busy Supermarket Mid-Afternoon

As a young Upper St. Clair man is alleged to have killed someone with whom he was involved in a minor dispute which reached a climax at the Washington Shop ‘n Save, a store I have patronized many times, multiple lives have been shattered.

First and foremost, a husband and father of five has been taken from his family, surely leaving those who cared for him in shock, wondering how something like this could have happened at a busy supermarket in mid-afternoon. The gunman and his family will endure a lengthy horror that began when he fired the fateful shot. Shattered for many is the sense of security that one would like to feel and is entitled to feel, particularly at a place like this crime scene, a location at which families with children were certainly present.

The National Rifle Association would tell us that guns save lives and that we dare not interfere with the most expansive view of the Second Amendment imaginable.  We have no right to insist that those who wish to own lethal weapons undergo training in their use nor may we insist that the gun owner be tested to ensure that he or she is psychologically sound. We must not inflict any inconvenience or delay upon the gun owner nor do we have the right to limit the number of guns one may purchase.

I imagine the NRA will be conspicuous in its silence as another life has been senselessly snuffed out by someone with a gun.

To those that are pro-gun and consider my thoughts to be liberal clap-trap, I would ask the following, do you think that in retrospect, and as he spends many years in confinement, that the gunman is glad he brought a firearm with him to settle disputes on this fateful day?

I make no excuses for the victim if he was the aggressor and assaulted the gunman before the shooting, but the decedent would likely be alive today had it not been so easy for his assailant to have killed him.  Was the killing worth it?