PsyCho: No crime of passion, and no law-abiding gun owner

PsyCho filed the serial numbers off his guns--at least one of them. Not only did that render them unsaleable in any legal market, it's also a Federal crime:

18 USC sec 922(k) It shall be unlawful for any person knowingly to transport,
ship, or receive, in interstate or foreign commerce, any firearm
which has had the importer's or manufacturer's serial number
removed, obliterated, or altered or to possess or receive any
firearm which has had the importer's or manufacturer's serial
number removed, obliterated, or altered and has, at any time, been
shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce.

Doing so raised the stakes of being caught with that gun from "getting kicked out of school and possibly a misdemeanor prosecution, though in Virginia maybe not" to "ATF involvement and federal prosecution". (It was an especially bizarre choice since he kept the receipt from the Roanoake gun store where he bought the Glock.) I think it's one more reason to believe he had this whole thing planned out for a long time, and didn't just suddenly flip out over a jilted lover.

What interests me is that PsyCho was never a law-abiding gun owner, and he didn't just snap all of a sudden. Don't let any gun-control advocates get away with talking points that he was, or he did. He was a federal criminal as soon as he effaced the serial number. He just hadn't been caught yet.