Mother of 6-year-old boy who shot teacher faces new federal charges

Mother of 6-year-old boy who shot teacher faces new federal charges

https://www.kgns.tv/2023/06/06/mother-6-year-old-boy-who-shot-teacher-faces-new-federal-charges/#

excerpt:

By WTKR Staff
Published: Jun. 6, 2023 at 5:58 AM EDT|Updated: 2 hours ago

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (WTKR) - The mother of a 6-year-old Virginia boy accused of shooting his teacher in January is now facing federal gun and drug charges.

Deja Taylor, 25, is the mother of the 6-year-old boy who gained international attention when police say he opened fire on his teacher at Richneck Elementary School. She was previously charged in Newport News Circuit Court with felony child neglect and a misdemeanor for leaving a firearm out that could endanger a child.

“She feels terrible that the teacher got shot,” said Jimmy Ellenson, defense attorney of Taylor.

Federal documents outlined Monday how Taylor is facing two more felony charges of possessing a gun while being a known mar1juana user and making a false statement when buying a gun in July 2022.

mar1juana is legal in Virginia but not federally. When you buy a gun, you are asked if you are an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance, and mar1juana falls under that code.

Ellenson said it’s a rare charge.

“It’s generally not mar1juana. It’s generally other, harder drugs, so this is unusual,” he said.

The lawyer adds Taylor plans to plead guilty to the new charges.
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more at the link

Of course the real story here is the felony charge for lying on the federal gun purchase form about drug use. This is the same charge that HUNTER BIDEN faces (but obviously nobody cares about Hunter Biden).

It remains to be seen whether the son of the President of the United States will be similarly charged. "Justice for thee but not for me."

 

can I use my Straw Man Card™ to respond??

so you're saying laws should be selectively enforced? come down hard on black single mothers and ease up on the privileged white son of POTUS?

GOTCHA.

 

that's why it was a straw man but that's how we roll in the D&D

 

my comment was the straw man. but I was of course just echoing the thousands and thousands of D&D posts made on similar topics since your grandfather's father invented Clutchfans in 1999

 

I’m just saying, it’s only taken the feds a couple of months to go after this woman. Meanwhile, and YEARS later, Hunter walks free.

coincidence? simple bad luck? racism? or other?

probably deserves its own poll

 

https://reason.com/2023/06/06/stop-piling-charges-on-mom-of-6-year-old-shooter/

Stop Piling Charges on Mom of 6-Year-Old Shooter
Plus: Michigan Supreme Court takes up case on warrantless drone spying, Obamacare legal battles continue, and more...
ELIZABETH NOLAN BROWN | 6.6.2023 9:32 AM

Virginia shooter's mom charged with being an unlawful user of a controlled substance in possession of a firearm. It's inevitable that people want to legally blame Deja Taylor for the actions of her 6-year-old son, who brought a gun to school back in January and shot his teacher, Abby Zwerner. Perhaps Taylor does deserve legal culpability, though that certainly depends on the circumstances by which her son got his hands on the gun. In any event, state charges for child neglect and failing to properly secure a handgun should be sufficient to sort that out.

But law enforcement isn't stopping there. Because those running our criminal justice system can't seem to resist ruining lives to the maximum extent possible, Taylor also faces a federal felony gun charge.

Taylor legally purchased the gun that her son later used to shoot his teacher. But federal prosecutors say that Taylor is a mar1juana user, and thus the purchase violated a federal prohibition on illegal drug users buying or owning firearms.

Keep in mind that recreational mar1juana is legal in Virginia, where Taylor lives. But because mar1juana is still illegal under federal law, prosecutors are still able to go after Taylor for violating the prohibition against illegal drug users owning guns.

The federal charges against Taylor highlight several related injustices. First and foremost, they showcase one of the ways in which continued federal criminalization of mar1juana can still be used to target people in states where mar1juana is legal.

The charges are also a reminder of how ridiculous federal gun control laws can be. Under the law in question, no one needs to prove that a gun was used in a drug-related crime, nor that drug use somehow contributed to a gun owner doing something reckless or violent. The mere fact that one has used mar1juana (or any other criminalized drug) in the past 12 monthsrenders one's Second Amendment rights invalid, according to this statute. Consume mar1juana even once during this period and your legally purchased and maintained gun suddenly becomes illegal.

Of course, plenty of gun owners also use mar1juana and the vast majority will not face criminal charges. Enforcing this rule in a widespread way would be prohibitively difficult and invasive. But if one happens to get caught with mar1juana and one owns a gun, it's a different story.

The rule doesn't stop drug users from owning guns so much as it adds an extra level of punishment to a prosecutor's arsenal when they do bust someone for drugs. In this way, the law lends itself to being used in a discriminatory manner and as a bargaining chip to coerce people into pleading guilty to drug crimes.

It's unclear how the feds came to suspect Taylor of using mar1juana. But if she did, it means she lied on the federal background check required of gun users, which asks "Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, mar1juana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance?" Taylor is now accused of saying no to that question "when in fact, as she knew then, she was an unlawful user of mar1juana," per charging documents.

Taylor stands accused in federal court of being an unlawful user of a controlled substance in possession of a firearm and making a false statement during a firearm purchase.

"The maximum sentence for the two federal charges is 25 years combined," notes The Virginian-Pilot. "Taylor is expected to plead guilty to both charges by way of a plea agreement in the coming weeks."

"The federal law that says mar1juana users can't simultaneously possess a firearm has come under increased scrutiny by federal judges in recent years as more states have moved toward weed legalization," notes the paper:

In February, a federal judge in Oklahoma ruled the prohibition to be an unconstitutional infringement on the Second Amendment's right to bear arms. That judge cited a U.S. Supreme Court decision from last year that said restrictions on gun rights can't go beyond those that were in place at the time of the nation's founding.

But in the Fourth Circuit, which includes Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina and South Carolina, the restriction is still in place.​

The drugs/gun law in this case also factors into potential charges against President Joe Biden's son Hunter. If he is charged, Hunter Biden will reportedly challenge the law as unconstitutional.
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bump for relevance