Kansas knows pro-gun hypocrisy that got Alex Pretti killed in Minneapolis | Opinion
This old gun control activist suffered whiplash on hearing various Republican officials cruelly blame Alex Pretti for getting himself killed because he had a concealed gun when he was shot by a Border Patrol agent in Minneapolis.
Many Kansans — including some gun rights advocates, gun store owners and cops — vigorously opposed a bill in Topeka that several years ago eliminated mandatory safety training for those wanting to carry a concealed firearm. That and various other pro-gun measures here and nationwide were championed by Republicans. Recent Kansas laws allow open carry almost everywhere, and concealed carry in university classrooms.
Police officials and gun dealers who support concealed carry for personal protection nonetheless warned Kansas legislators that untrained carriers pose more danger than they enhance protection.
So, pardon my amazement when Republicans said Pretti should have known better than to carry that gun. Maybe. But where, exactly, would he have heard such guidance? Not in most of the gun rights community. And if he’d lived in Kansas, it certainly wouldn’t have been at now nonexistent mandatory training classes, where folks learned the law, their rights and when it’s unwise to deploy a firearm.
Maybe I missed it, but I never heard a legislator say in a concealed carry debate anything like: “Well, carrying is great but don’t ever do it when …”
Instead, the point made repeatedly was that carrying under any circumstances, trained or not, makes us safer.
It’s sickening that it took a senseless death and a desperation to defend the Minnesota mess to reveal some of the hypocrisy behind gun rights politics. But don’t kid yourself: This won’t result in better gun safety laws. The National Rifle Association will whip any wayward legislators back into line.
Ardent pro-gun politicians will continue faulting only shooters and victims for the carnage. Guns-everywhere lawmakers never take responsibility for any of it.
Loren Stanton is former president of the Kansas chapter of the 501(c)(4) nonprofit Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.