Eighteen year of Jillian Ludwig a freshman at Belmont University in Nashville was walking on a track in a park in the middle of the afternoon this week. The bullet hit her in the head. She was found almost an hour later taken to a hospital where she died two days later. Ludwig had only been at Belmont for less than three months. She was from Wall Township, New Jersey. She played the bass guitar and was studying music business. She posted videos of herself playing the bass and the piano. She performed at events around Wall. She was well liked with her whole life ahead of her. The person who fired the shot should never have had a gun. But instead of the law preventing him from having it, it allowed him to have it.
Twenty-nine year old Shaquille Taylor was arrested for firing a gun from a nearby housing project into a passing car. The bullet hit Jillian. In 2021, Taylor was accused of assault with a deadly weapon for shooting at a female driver while her two kids were in the back seat. Charges were dismissed. Taylor was found incompetent to stand trial by three doctors. This past September, Taylor was charged with a felony involving a car jacking. He was released on bond and there was a warrant out for his arrest when Jillian was shot.
Even though the three doctors found Taylor incompetent to stand trial in 2021, he didn’t meet the threshold to be involuntarily committed. For that to happen, two doctors have to find that the person suffers from severe mental illness that causes the person to be a substantial risk of serious harm to themselves or others. There was be no other less restrictive measures than commitment. Taylor’s case was dismissed. With no felony conviction, or red flag laws in Tennessee, Taylor was free to have a gun. Red flag laws allow families or law enforcement to request an extreme risk protection order. If a judge decides that a person is at risk of committing violence, law enforcement can temporarily remove firearms from their homes for up to a year. A court order also indicted that Taylor suffered from a brain infection at birth and functions “at a kindergarten level.”
Tennessee State Representative William Lamberth is now trying to change the law, even though it’s too late for Jillian Ludwig. Lamberth said, “There is absolutely no reason why they should be allowed to have a firearm. They should not be able to purchase or possess a firearm.” Nineteen states have red flag laws. But a study by the Associated Press,”…found many U.S. states barely use the red flag laws touted as the most powerful tool to stop gun violence before it happens, a trend blamed on a lack of awareness of laws and resistance by some authorities to enforce them even as shootings and gun deaths soar.” So less than half of states have red flag laws, and those that do often don’t use them enough to save lives.
Gun violence is out of control in America because, even though most Americans favor more gun control, we keep electing those who put the gun ahead of people, and every day there will be more Jillian Ludwigs.
An American political party that shall remain nameless, has put forth and foisted upon the public many myths and outright lies with perhaps the most onerous being that any gun control automatically leads to a slippery slope and the confiscation of everyone’s guns. Common sense laws have nothing to do with slippery slopes, but when a person’s identity is 100% synonymous w/an opinion, that person will not change…despite fact, logic and of course common sense.