Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen someone who pushes for gun control also say things that suggest they’re violent individuals. It’s hard not to think there’s some degree of projection involved when they say that if they see a gun, they plan on assaulting the person carrying it. There really are some violent people in the gun control movement.
However, a college student from Connecticut who once took to his Instagram account to advocate for gun control now stands accused of kidnapping and a double homicide.
Peter Manfredonia, a student at the University of Connecticut, is on the run and is suspected of killing two men, injuring another and kidnapping a woman, then fleeing in a stolen car, over the long weekend.
Yesterday, a 23-year-old woman who said she was abducted by the suspected college student was found healthy in New Jersey, police said.
The unidentified woman told police that Manfredonia took her out of the Derby, Connecticut, residence against her will, using her vehicle to escape after killing her boyfriend, Nicholas Eisele, a friend of the fugitive.
Manfredonia is suspected to have started his killing spree Friday morning in an attack on a dirt road in Willington (CT) that left Ted DeMers (62) dead and another man seriously injured, state police said.
DeMers’ wife Cynthia DeMers told the Hartford Courant newspaper that her husband and an elderly neighbor were attacked after taking Manfredonia to her motorcycle that was parked on the road.
You see, as awful as that is, Manfredonia’s hometown isn’t unfamiliar with monsters.
It seems that the accused used to advocate for gun control in part because of his hometown. You see, he grew up just six doors away from the killer in the Sandy Hook massacre.
The fact that Manfredonia grew up in Sandy Hook six houses down the block from mass murderer [The Sandy Hook killer] was never mentioned in newspapers, except when adults worried in the press about the negative effects the 2012 slayings of 20 first-graders and six educators could have on his generation.
And before Manfredonia was arrested Wednesday in connection with two Memorial Day weekend homicides, the social media posts associated with the 23-year-old University of Connecticut senior were recently about his support of the gun violence prevention work by homegrown nonprofits in Newtown.
Odd, that.
So, what happened?
Manfredonia was a senior at UConn, so probably too old to have been at the school the day of the shooting, so while some want to tied the killings to the accusations against Manfredonia, that seems to be a bit of a stretch.
Instead, though, I can’t help but notice just how many anti-gunners routinely threaten violence. Even then, Manfredonia’s threats go above and beyond compared to the promises to hit, taze, or pepper-spray gun owners. Bad as all of those are, none of them are kidnapping or a double homicide.
It’s important to note that Manfredonia is only accused of committing these horrific acts. He hasn’t been convicted of them.
If he is, though, then it sounds like Newtown, Connecticut may want to take a long, hard look at what they’re doing there. After all, what are the odds of a town of just 27,000 or so souls could produce two monsters? Maybe some of the groups that sprung up in the wake of Sandy Hook should focus some attention on that instead of trying to infringe on our rights.
Just a thought.
Tom Knighton is a Navy veteran, a former newspaperman, a novelist, and a blogger and lifetime shooter. He lives with his family in Southwest Georgia. He's also the host of Unloaded TV on YouTube. https://bearingarms.com/author/tomknighton/
https://bearingarms.com/tom-k/2020/06/01/kidnapping-murder-gun-control/