The U.S. Department of Justice waited 37 years to challenge Denver’s gun control law, only to demand the law’s repeal just after police released a trove of records underscoring for Coloradans why limiting access to guns with high-capacity magazines is essential.
The DOJ is now suing Denver over its ban on weapons that can hold more than 15 bullets, and it is suing the state of Colorado over a similar ban on magazines that hold more than 15 bullets. These long-delayed federal challenges against common-sense gun laws are silly, given that both laws have already withstood numerous legal challenges and predate the common circulation in America of weapons intended for war.
Denver’s ban predates even the 1994 federal assault weapons ban that Congressmembers foolishly let expire in 2004. The state-wide ban on magazines came in 2013, just a year after the Aurora Theater shooting, where, in a matter of seconds, an assailant with a 100-round magazine was able to kill 12 people and injure 70 more. Incident reports said the attack only stopped when the gun jammed.
But we only have to go back less than a year for a reminder of why these laws exist. Just last month, police released hundreds of pages of documents from the Evergreen High School shooting.
We learned from the reports that the shooter — a disturbed teenager — was intent on killing as many people as possible when he entered Evergreen High School on Sept. 10. He roved through the school’s halls for almost 9 minutes, emptying and reloading his parents’ Smith and Wesson .38 Special revolver at least once, possibly more.
The attack was limited by the fact that the revolver only held 5 bullets and had to be reloaded one bullet at a time, as opposed to assault rifles that often have large detachable magazines that can be clipped in and out rapidly. Based on the reports, we can tell the shooter used his bullets sparingly despite having extra ammunition with him, and that reloading bought time for students and teachers to run, hide, and warn others.
First, the shooter aimed at a 14-year-old student, who survived being shot twice by fleeing up the stairwell and seeking medical aid from teachers in another part of the school campus. Bullets one and two.
Next, as teachers in one hallway urged students to take cover, the gunman hid the gun inside a pocket or bag to get closer to his targets. Once close to the teachers, he drew and fired. Mercifully, he didn’t hit anyone, and the teachers escaped to warn other students or hide in a nearby classroom. Bullet three.
Next, he fired into a classroom where the Gay-Straight Alliance club met, but didn’t strike anyone. Bullet four.
Then he targeted the band room with an unsuccessful attack through a small window on the door. Bullet five. The report says investigators found five casings outside the room, indicating this is one place the assailant stopped and reloaded. He may have reloaded earlier, using more bullets in each attack, as well, but it is unclear whether more casings were found.
All this time, the assailant was limited by his gun’s capacity and the slower rate at which it could fire compared to an assault rifle. Lives were saved because the shooter was only able to take a revolver from his parents’ gun safe. It’s unclear what other weapons were in the safe because the would-be killer’s parents refused to speak to police in the days, weeks and months following the attack.
The attack ended outside the school when Matthew Silverstone, 18, confronted the shooter. Silverstone was shot twice and critically injured, but miraculously survived. Police then encircled the shooter, who used one more bullet on himself.
The U.S. Department of Justice wants us to believe that because millions of semi-automatic, high-capacity weapons are in circulation, gun bans like the one in Denver are ineffective and unconstitutional. But we know that the type of gun used makes a drastic difference in the outcome of the mass shooting. Every time laws keep an assault rifle out of the hands of someone intent on killing as many people as possible, lives are saved.
If the U.S. Department of Justice wants to protect the Second Amendment, then it would best serve law-abiding, patriotic gun owners by aggressively rooting out the extremist pockets of activity that are fueling mass shootings. The attacker at Evergreen High School was inspired by a radical misogynist movement online that glorified the Isla Vista, Calif., shooter who went on a killing spree because he was angry at women, because he had not had sex, and called himself involuntarily celibate.
The FBI was tracking the Evergreen shooter’s online activity. Federal law enforcement said they were working to identify the anonymous user when the shooting occurred. The DOJ should be spending its time building cases against known threats, so it can move quickly with warrants when intelligence indicates an imminent attack.
Local law enforcement cannot work preventively alone, and our federal partners have a much clearer picture of online extremism. We need their help in keeping students safe, not their assault on our laws.
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