Michael Morgan isn’t unique; sociopaths like him are the bread-and-butter of New York tabloids.
Two years ago, Morgan, then 18 years old, came out of an apartment building shooting. He missed the intended victim, but killed the victim’s companion.
He got away with that crime at the time, confessing to it only after being arrested for shooting a McDonalds fast food worker on Monday, August 1, 2022.
He shot the McDonalds employee over cold french fries. You read that right. Morgan’s mom purchased a McDonald’s order, then complained to her son that the fries were cold. So Morgan went to the McDonald’s and confronted employee Mathew Webb, 23, by punching Webb in the face, then pulled a gun and shot him in the neck. Webb is on life support, declared brain dead, so that’s going to be another murder charge (see story here).
New York City has long had restrictive gun laws. That may not keep sociopaths like Morgan from getting guns, but why make it easier by making it legal? But in June 2022 the Supreme Court that McConnell and Trump packed with conservative extremists struck down a century-old New York law regulating the carrying of handguns in public. (You could do it, but needed a license.) New York’s governor retorted that decision “isn’t just reckless, it’s reprehensible.”
The Second Amendment says,
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
Michael Morgan doesn’t look like a well-regulated militia to me. However, when highly partisan justices ignore the qualifying phrase and decide any and all “people” can bear arms anywhere, including in urban jungles, then you get the 20-year-old Michael Morgans of the world acting out their juvenile impulses against McDonalds workers with Glocks, Barettas, Colts, and Smith & Wessons.
You can argue they would do that anyway, but it would be nice if the Supreme Court didn’t make crime-infested cities let such people carry guns. Now the police can’t arrest them for gun possession and take them off the streets before they kill somebody. The Second Amendment’s language doesn’t dictate this result (all they have to do is read all 27 words, not just 14 of them), so where is the common sense?
The Supreme Court conservative majority has already ruled New York City has to let someone like Morgan go around with a handgun, and may soon decide married couples have no right to have condoms or birth control pills in their bedrooms.
Three conservative justices got on the court by skirting constitutional checks and balances by lying to Senators about their intentions during the confirmation process.
Term-limiting justices, or packing the court, are drastic remedies. But when things have gotten out of control, maybe drastic remedies are called for.
Photos: Morgan being arrested (above), and the crime scene (below)