Posted on 02/28/2008 2:40:27 PM PST by VeniVidiVici
MARION COUNTY, Fla. -- A Marion County man who opened fire on his wife bought the shotgun used in the crime just hours earlier at a nearby Wal-Mart. He didn't have to wait to get the gun. He passed a mandatory background check in the store and walked right out with it.
The man then went back into the store and bought some shotgun shells. Detectives said he then went home and murdered his wife.
Cheryl Schleher heard a knock at the door Monday night around 11 o'clock. It was her neighbor, Johnny High.
"My husband went out there and he asked my husband if he had a shotgun," she said.
High left Schleher's home empty-handed. Tuesday morning, deputies said he came to the Wal-Mart on State Road 200. He bought a shotgun, some shells and took them home, where he opened fire on his wife, Kimberly.
"We have witnesses that actually watched her run from the house and watched him chasing after her and he shot her in the yard [in the back]," said Sgt. Brian Spivey, Marion County Sheriff's Office.
Kimberly High died in her backyard. Deputies said her husband then went inside their trailer home and shot himself in the chest. The first officers on the scene said High was still conscious when they got there and he confessed.
Schleher said the couple was getting a divorce. She said Johnny looked liked he had been crying the night he came to her house. She didn't know what he was about to do. Just the same, she wishes she had warned Kimberly.
"When my husband told, told me, I said, 'We need to tell Kimmy, though. I don't know. She was a good friend," she said.
The sheriff's office said Johnny High is in critical condition at Orlando Regional Medical Center. The Highs have two children, four and seven years old. They were not home when their mother was killed. They are now with their grandparents.
In Florida, there is a three-day waiting period for handguns, but there is no waiting period for long guns. In addition, background checks are only required at federally-licensed gun stores. People buying firearms at gun shows and person to person are not subject to background checks.
As the Meathead said to Archie,”Guns are the number one cause of murder in this country!” and Archie replies to the Meathead,”Would you rather they be shoved out a window instead?”
Which is too bad - guns should be MORE accessible, not less accessible.
The average person doesn't wander into a gunshop to shop around, and frankly, gunshops often aren't the most family-friendly places, how often have you gone into one and some obscene loud-mouth is there talking trash and trying to show off to everyone? I'd be embarrassed to bring my daughter into some of these places.
By marginalizing guns and making them more exotic, the public at large will change its perception of them.
Gratuitous throw-away.
BZZZZT- wrong answer, hope youve got your asbestos undies on...
This guy wasnt acting out in passion, it was a murder/suicide attempt and the firearm was his best way to achieve his goal, he had already thought it out as evidenced by going to the neighbor and then wally world...
Try out your argument on a dead woman who had to die because she had to wait to get a pistol for protection...
They shoulda let him bleed out...
LFOD...
don’t forget to sue the FBI who maintains the NICS records that allowed him to get the gun.
Watch for a huge lawsuit against the "EEEvil" Wal-Mart.
Liar, Liar!
But they were on sale at Gander Mountain this week! What was he thinking? ;)
See this one?
Wal-Mart stopped selling guns in their store here so I guess I couldn’t do that.
No 372 57%
Thank God he didn’t buy a 6-pack of beer and a pack of smokes with that shotgun at Wal-Mart. The Left would have positively gone orgasmic.
I’d like to know how this is relevant. She’s just as dead as if he’d owned the gun for 5 yrs.
Further proof that "no fault" divorce kills more people than guns do.
Clearly the gun was responsible for the murder; we should outlaw guns. It’s not like the man was a disturbed individual who could have, say, used a knife.
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