In the wake of a mass shooting, what do we always hear?
Universally, there's going to be calls for gun control. The usual suspects will say we need things like universal background checks, red flag laws, assault weapon bans, and a host of other measures. It happens every time, sometimes starting while the bullets are still flying, and we on this side of the debate are forced to argue against it almost immediately as well.
But in Texas, there wasn't a mass shooting.
Texas has none of those laws, and yet, a 17-year-old was planning just such an attack. It didn't happen, and not because the kid chickened out. It's because the laws that were needed were already in place. Someone just needed to use them.
The teenager accused of plotting a "mass casualty attack" on the 4th of July in Canyon had explosives, guns several hundred rounds of ammo.
The new information released Tuesday by DPS, three days after ABC 7 News broke the story about 18-year-old Kevin Alexander Hunt's planned attack.
DPS said Hunt was detained July 2 on an emergency mental health warrant after investigators became "increasingly concerned about the potential for Hunt to harm himself or others."
They said in the weeks before that, he was posting on social media about hurting himself and committing a "mass casualty attack."
DPS obtained search warrant for Hunt's home where they seized "several materials used to make explosive devices, multiple firearms and several hundred rounds of ammunition."
As ABC 7 News reported Monday, those materials were hydrogen peroxide, hexamine, and citric acid which according to multiple federal agencies are used by terrorists because they are easy to obtain, they are "generally easy to detonate, and may be used in improvised detonators."
In other words, people saw troubling signs, acted, and the police stopped a potential attack before it could ever start.
In the process, it shattered just about every myth anti-gunners push in the wake of these awful tragedies. Texas not only doesn't have a red flag law, but they also voted recently to make it impossible for local communities to try to enact their own. They have no assault weapon ban. They have pretty much no real gun control laws beyond what's covered under federal law to speak of.
And yet, they could stop this attack.
Even more than that, though, despite explosives being illegal as hell, this kid was putting those together, preparing an attack that would have gone beyond just a simple mass shooting if everything worked. He's not the first to try something like that, either, as the Columbine killers also attempted to use explosives. Theirs just didn't work.
We don't need new laws to combat mass killings.
What we need are people who are cognizant of the warning signs and who are willing to make a phone call and let the police investigate. We have all the laws we need, and then some. We can stop these. In fact, this isn't the first such attack that's been thwarted without a red flag law being needed. We've covered many over the years.
There are ways we can prevent these awful attacks. Let's use those instead of infringing on the rights of people who aren't doing anything wrong.
You know, just to shake stuff up a bit.
Editor’s Note: The Democrat Party has never been less popular as voters reject its anti-gun agenda.
Help us continue exposing Democrats' plans to lead America down a dangerous path. Join Bearing Arms VIP and use promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your membership.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member