Yesterday, a 17 year old boy was arrested in Illinois for the shooting of three people, two fatally, at the protests in Kenosha Wisconsin over police shooting Jacob Blake in the back.  He used an assault rifle. The boy has appeared in several videos in altercations with protestors and people chasing him after the shootings, shouting at police that he was the shooter, which they ignored. In a video shot earlier that evening, the shooter claimed to be there to protect a car dealership with other armed vigilantes.  His  social media pages are full of gun videos and pro-police posts, as well of one of him with a ringside seat at a Trump rally in January.  Of course.

Where a goddam kid put his hands on an assault rifle is as yet unknown.  It’s illegal for a 17 year old to possess or open carry an assault rifle in Wisconsin or Illinois.  Unregulated private gun sales are legal in Wisconsin and open carry is legal for those 18 and over.  The Gifford’s Law Center rates Wisconsin gun laws at a C-.  In Illinois, rated A- by the Giffords Law Center, it is illegal for anyone under the age of 21 to purchase or own a long gun, even with parental consent.  We’ll likely find out that the assault weapon the shooter used in these murders either belonged to the shooter’s parents OR was purchased in Wisconsin in an unregulated sale.  This is a textbook example of why state and local gun laws simply don’t work.  Common sense, strict gun laws at the federal level is the only way we can even hope to reduce widespread gun violence.

On the other side of the country, armed radical right wing gun nuts pushed past Idaho state police officers at the state capitol in Boise, broke down the state house gallery door and stormed into the chamber to protest common sense public health policy.  Fearing violence, the police and the house majority leader allowed said gun nuts to fill the entire gallery ignoring social distancing rules and essentially commandeering state property that had been cordoned off to allow the senators to social distance as they debated health policy legislation. They also filled committee rooms and an auditorium.  There were only a few arrests, but one included Ammon Bundy, son of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who has successfully commandeered federal land for his own private use for grazing his cattle.  It appears the younger Bundy was the leader of the Idaho protest.  One other note – this incident happened in the very same building where, in 2014, state police arrested dozens of protestors standing silently in the hallways to protest for LGBTQ rights.

The lessons here aren’t complicated.  The simple truth is that white guys carrying assault rifles literally get away with murder, violence, and threats of violence when other people, including lawmakers, are doing anything they hate.  Put even more simply, armed white guys have more rights than disarmed peaceful black people.  Carrying of weapons emboldens people to violate our laws and destroy societal norms.  Police allow, and sometimes even condone, such behavior, and the presence of guns during protests always confuses the situation and increases violence.  Self appointed “militia”, which are illegal, commandeer public property, and insert themselves into protests to  “protect” private property, but their effect is universally destabilizing. We have seen that many times, including the violence at the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, and at other protests from New Mexico to Dallas.

Allowing guns anywhere near political speech is nothing short of terrible public policy, period.  State and local gun laws don’t work, period.  Gun safety laws must be federal.  Guns in state capitols and municipal buildings threatens to destroy what’s left of our political system in America.  NO OTHER DEVELOPED COUNTRY HAS THIS PROBLEM.  The rest of the world understands that guns increase violence and death all the time, every time.  Only strong federal laws have a prayer of reducing the violence and threat of violence that now permeates our society.

As the details began emerging about the church shooting on Sunday, gun zealots immediately began boasting and calling for even fewer restrictions on gun ownership in Texas, which already has some of the worst gun laws in the US and is experiencing an explosion of gun violence as a result. Why?  The shooter was taken down by a “volunteer” security guard, and about a half a dozen other parishioners were also carrying guns. Bolstered by this fact, idiots like Jonathan Stickland, the goofball state rep from Bedford who actually wants to loosen gun laws even further, boasted how “constitutional carry” (translation: no licensing, no training, no ID confirmation)  would save lives.  Ken Paxton, who has now avoided trial for almost 5 years for multiple felony charges, chimed in, “We can’t prevent mental illness from occurring, and we can’t prevent every crazy person from pulling a gun.  But we can be prepared like this church was.”

Both Stickland and Paxton are wrong on both counts.  Objective data-based research has proven over and over that more guns equals more gun violence, everywhere, every time, all the time.  Unlicensed carry and unregulated gun sales is not only bad public policy, it’s just downright stupid, and it’s stupid by the numbers.  But there are lessons that can be learned here.  Here’s how I see it:

First, the “volunteer” security guard is Jack Wilson, a firearms instructor who owns a gun range in Hood County.  He trains and coordinates the security team in the West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement where the shooting occurred.  He took out the gunman with ONE SHOT to the head at what looks like a distance of about 10 yards.  That is very difficult to do, and only someone who is highly trained can do that, especially in a live fire situation.  The rest of his team coordinated together to protect the other parishioners and begin evacuation.  The result here proves that guns, in the hands of highly trained experts, can save lives.  It also demonstrates that guns, in untrained hands, can have unintended consequences, like killing other innocents.

Second, the shooter had a rap sheet as long as your arm, including illegal gun possession and felony assault. He had no business with a gun. How did he get his hands on the shotgun he used?  We don’t know yet, but Texas, like many other states, allows private gun sales without a background check.  This is one of the most stupid laws we have which allows a private transaction between two people, with no intermediary like a licensed gun dealer to check for criminal record.  Also, the NICS background check system has more holes than Swiss cheese, including making it VOLUNTARY for states to report criminal records and mental health adjudications.  Some local police agencies inconsistently report, some don’t do it timely.  Even the Air Force has failed to report to the NICS system, which is how the church shooter in Sutherland Springs got his hands on the AR-15 he used to massacre the congregation there.

Third, one of those killed was a trained security guard for the church.  One thing the FBI found in it’s active shooter study in 2014 was that armed people trying to stop a shooting are themselves shot almost 47% of the time.  Think about this – almost HALF of trained law enforcement officers who engage an active shooter are themselves shot.  A much better result is to keep guns out of the hands of potential shooters than to put police and armed civilians in harm’s way.

Fourth, the security team identified that guy as suspicious when he came in and were on high alert.  Wilson even said he was wearing a wig and a fake beard, and was in a long overcoat.  Had they approached him earlier, they could have prevented the two deaths he caused before Wilson killed him. The lesson here?  Even highly trained people make mistakes, and when the bad guy has a gun the results are deadly, even when the good guys are armed, too.

Overall, we know that more guns do NOT equal more safety; in fact the opposite is true by the numbers. However, highly trained people (like the police) can prevent gun deaths, even though those occurrences are rare.  Instead of crowing about undoing more gun laws, our politicians should be working to fix them.  I’m not holding my breath.