Mukilteo shooter: ‘I wish they never sold me a firearm’

The convicted murderer in a tragic Mukilteo shooting last year was granted his right to make a statement before his sentencing Thursday. He used the time to say that the access to a gun was a factor in his crime.

“I will never speak to the public again, I forfeited that right,” Allen Ivanov told the courtroom Thursday. “But I would like everyone to hear loud and clear that it was the ease of acquiring a gun that enabled me to act on my emotion. I don’t mean to absolve myself of guilt or dodge responsibility, but I know for a fact that given the feverish state I was in, I never could have done this with my hands. I wish they never sold me a firearm. And I wish I was never legally allowed to buy one.”

Related: Allen Ivanov sentenced to life in prison for Mukilteo shooting

Ivanov, 20, shot and killed three people, and wounded a fourth on July 30, 2016 — shortly after purchasing an AR-15 rifle. He was angry over his ex-girlfriend Anna Bui, and how she had moved on with her life after their breakup. Ivanov shot and killed Bui, Jake Long, Jordan Ebner — all 19 years old — at a small party at a Mukilteo home. Will Kramer was shot and wounded during the incident.

Statements on the Mukilteo shooting

Saying that “life is precious” and that he was “hopeless, suicidal and outraged” on the day of the Mukilteo shooting, Ivanov provided additional details about what happened on the tragic day. He reportedly read the user’s manual for the AR-15 in the car before he used it to take the three teenagers’ lives. In court, he said he waited for hours outside the home before the shooting.

Ivanov said he pulled the trigger in a moment of shock and that “Satan was in control.” Since the murders, he said he has cried his eyes out every day and that his ex-girlfriend, Bui, visits him and talks to him in his dreams.

“I have ruined my life,” Ivanov said in court. “I have caused my family a lifetime of sadness and loss. I have ended all my friendships.”

“Even though I can’t put myself in any of your places, I do have an idea of how awful my actions were and the damage I have caused,” he said to the victims’ families. “A damage which cannot be undone. I want to apologize wholeheartedly for all those whose lives I have taken — Hannah, Jordan and Jake — and all of you whose lives have been so darkened by my actions, parents, relatives, friends as well as Will and his loved ones. I understand this has been a nightmare for all of you. It certainly has been for me.”

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