“Police have arrested a 17-year-old suspect in the slaying of a University of Texas dance student,” washingtonpost.com reports. “Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo said at a news conference that Meechaiel Criner has been booked into the county jail on a first-degree murder charge in the slaying of Haruka Weiser, a first-year student from Portland, Ore. Weiser, 18, was last seen . . .
Sunday night leaving the university’s drama building en route to her dorm, police said. Roommates reported her missing the next morning. Weiser’s body was found on campus Tuesday in Waller Creek by the university’s alumni center, a short walk from the drama building.”
It should have been a defensive gun use? Yes, even though Ms. Wieser was not old enough to legally carry a firearm.
If she’d been equipped with a non-lethal “gun” like the TASER Pulse, she would have at least had a fighting chance. More to the point, the legal age for carrying a firearm should be 18. That’s the age of majority, when citizens are entitled to all their Constitutionally protected rights. Why should the state deny a legal citizen their right to keep and bear arms?
This is not to suggest that Ms. Wieser was in any way responsible for her murder. Only that the government is wrong to leave young men and women unable to choose the most effective means of self-defense to defend themselves from violent attack — if they so desire. Our condolences to Ms. Wieser’s friends and family.