Glock switches take toll on young Alabamians physically and mentally
Tuskegee University has cancelled classes for the remainder of the week to give students an extended period of healing after a mass shooting on Sunday that killed 18 year old La’Tavion Johnson and injured 16 others. Tuskegee University officials announced new security measures the day after the shooting saying that people entering the campus will now be required to show ID. The university also hired a new campus security leader.
But that is not comforting to some parents. I spoke with the mother of one Tuskegee student who was so worried about her daughter, that she drove from two states away to pick her up and bring her back home. The mother did not want to be identified, but she says her daughter is still traumatized.
Less than two months after Glock switches were used in the mass shooting that killed 4 people and injured 17 others in Birmingham’s Five Points South entertainment district, 25-year-old Jaquez Myrick is facing federal charges that he possessed a handgun that had a Glock switch on it. Authorities say he was seen leaving the scene of the mass shooting at Tuskegee University on November 10 that killed one person and injured 16 others. The sound of rapid gunfire can be heard in video recorded during the shooting.
District 74 Representative Phillip Ensler has pre-filed a state bill that would make it illegal to possess a pistol that has been converted to an automatic weapon using a switch. Ensler says police officers and sheriff’s deputies told him they were frustrated that they didn’t have a state law that they could enforce regarding the switches.
“We find these and we are finding more of them, but we have to turn the cases over to the federal government and see if they will take it on, and they’re increasingly stretched thin with so many of these cases. So having the state level band will send a really strong message that in Alabama we’re not tolerating these, and second it gives a tool to law-enforcement to try to reduce some of this gun violence here in the state and on the local level,” said Ensler.
Ensler has four co-sponsors for the bill – three are Republicans. “Everyone wants to have safe neighborhoods, safe communities. So at the end of the day it’s a public safety issue, and I think when my colleagues see and think about it that way, that it’s not in anyway taking away guns or violating any constitutional right but it’s about safer communities, everyone can and should be on board with that,” said Ensler.
Four major law enforcement organizations including ALEA, the Fraternal Order of Police, the Alabama District Attorneys Association, and the Alabama Sheriffs Association support the bill. “I was elected to be a lawmaker so my job is literally to try to propose laws and things that can help save lives and make the community a little safer, and that’s what this is about. Knowing it’s not going to prevent everything, but if it can save some lives if it can stop some mass shootings, then it’s absolutely worth it. It is not a Democrat or or a Republican issue – it’s about humans,” said Ensler.
One person has been arrested in connection with the crime, but he has not been charged with the actual shooting in Tuskegee. The Macon County Sheriff’s Office is asking anyone with information about the shooting to share it anonymously through their hotline: 334-215-7067.
