John McGuire blames Democrats for the Old Dominion shooting

There are just a few problems with that.

On Monday, the Daily Signal ran a story headlined “Democrat-Passed Law May Have Allowed Shooter to Enter Old Dominion Undetected.” The story quotes District 5 rep John McGuire:

A shooting on Old Dominion University’s campus has left Americans asking how someone who pled guilty to helping ISIS was able to enroll at an American university.

The unsettling answer is that Virginia Democrats passed a law forbidding public colleges from asking applicants about their criminal history.

“It’s just heartbreaking,” Rep. John McGuire, R-Va., told The Daily Signal of the shooting.

And with Northam’s law on the books, “it all just seems preventable,” the former Navy SEAL added.

“I was in the House of Delegates, and I voted no on that bill. It’s called Ban the Box law,” McGuire said, adding that he believes the tragedy at Old Dominion could have been prevented if Democrats hadn’t passed the legislation.

Here is McGuire’s logical chain: Ban the Box → ODU didn’t know about the shooter’s terrorist history → Shooter got on campus → Attack happened.

Bullshit.

Thirty-seven states have Ban the Box laws, including the notoriously pro-criminal jurisdictions of Georgia and Texas.

McGuire is implying that if Virginia hadn’t kept ODU from asking Mohamed Bailor Jalloh about his criminal past, the school could’ve prevented him from carrying out his plans. But McGuire never explains how knowing Jalloh’s history—assuming he’d have divulged it if asked—would have helped.

Maybe ODU could have refused to admit him? But the attack wasn’t enabled by Jalloh’s status as a student. Nothing in the reporting I’ve seen suggests that he badged in to the building or was checked at an entrance. He walked into a room and asked if it was an ROTC class. He didn't need student credentials to do that.

If anyone is at fault, it’s the federal government.

Jalloh was released from federal prison in 2024, having served most of an 11-year sentence for a plot to kill U.S. troops. At the time of the ODU attack, he was on federal supervised release. He was visited by a supervision officer just twice a year, most recently last November.

Why was a man who wanted to kill American soldiers released from prison early? Because he had completed a drug treatment program, which under federal law would qualify him for early release. The law specifically exempts people convicted of terrorism-related charges, but the Bureau of Prisons says Jalloh got out because of a loophole that they’ve since closed.

At the same time, Congress is underfunding the part of the federal court system that’s responsible for supervised release. Last year, the U.S. court system warned that the GOP’s budget would require “steep cuts to funding for clerks of court and probation and pretrial services.” Plus, last year the DOJ terminated more than $76 million in grants that supported community supervision. And, as a convicted ISIS supporter on supervised release, Jalloh was exactly the kind of person that should have attracted attention from the FBI’s counterterrorism unit, which has been hit by Trump’s budget chainsaw.

None of this has anything to do with Virginia Democrats or banning the box. They’re federal failures under both the Biden and Trump administrations. Just the kind of thing the House Oversight Committee and freshman congressman John McGuire should be looking into.

John McGuire, tastefully using a school shooting to promote his gun law

As we’re reminded after every school shooting, Republicans are against politicizing them by making them an opportunity to talk about gun laws. So naturally, John McGuire just politicized a school shooting by making it an opportunity to talk about gun laws.

On Monday, just days after the Old Dominion attack, he introduced a bill that would allow private citizens to sue state and local governments if they’re injured by a firearm in a gun-free zone. (Certain restrictions apply.) It would also zero out federal funding of law-enforcement equipment for governments that maintain gun-free zones.

I’m not sure whether Old Dominion’s no-guns policy would make it liable under McGuire’s law. But consider a different example. It’s illegal in 14 states to carry a gun into a bar. (Even Texas!) Under McGuire’s law, every bar in those states is a gun-free zone. If you got shot in one, you’d be able to sue the state.

I’d be surprised if this bill would pass constitutional muster. But the bigger news is, Republicans now think it’s okay to talk about gun laws in the aftermath of a shooting. So we can count on never again being told, “This is not the time.” Right?