07/27/2020
The tragedy of this is that there are over 398 million guns in private hands in the US, 46% of the global total (source Washington Post June 19, 2018 "There are More Guns than People in the US") and states like Texas have open carry laws that allow some of those guns on the street.
It is understandable, given the violence surrounding the peaceful protests, several cars driving into protesters in the Northwest, armed counter-protesters, apparently, right-wing agitators starting fires and rioting, that a man accompanying a woman in a wheelchair might decide to show capacity to react to a serious threat. A car speeding towards you and your invalid girlfriend honking its horn signalling the intent of going through the intersection qualifies as a serious threat and I suspect the driver of the car will have a difficult time convincing a jury of common sense peers that he was not the catalyst for all that followed and that his act was not planned but spontaneous. Whether the victim pointed his rifle at the driver or not the fatality is a direct result of there being two guns in a confrontation and each man was carrying such weapons in anticipation of a confrontation. Common sense dictates that if your go looking for trouble, you will likely find it; If you are planning trouble you will likely find it; even if trouble is not present you are of the mindset to interpret any extraordinary action as trouble.
So we have too many guns and not enough common sense. The arguments since 2012 and Sandy Hook that gun provide protection is facile, firearm fatalities went up 20% in the years following many states enacting open carry and relaxed concealed carry laws. So one reasonable solution would be to backtrack on those laws and leave the wild west persona in the 19th Century where it belongs with Jesse James, Wild Bill Hickok and Wyatt Earp.
On Sunday, Austin police said they had interviewed the driver, who had turned himself in after fleeing the scene.
