The United States of America can never attain anything approaching utopia as long as we as a nation choose to prioritize protecting gun possession over protecting lives. I’ll tell a story about my tenuous connection to mass shooting victims and their tragic stories. I will then present two achievable proposals for improved gun control.

On August 3rd, 2019, I received a call from Alexandar (Alex) Anchondo, who rented a house of mine in San Antonio. He informed me that his nephew and nephew’s wife had been killed, and their two-month-old baby was injured at the El Paso Walmart shooting earlier that day. For the first time, I became connected to the tragedy of mass shootings in this country. Alex’s nephew and wife were Andre and Jordan Anchondo, two of the 23 people Patrick Wood Crusius murdered on that brutal day in El Paso.

The following story will be one of my imagination supported by facts from media and other sources. I deliberately exclude pictures because I want you to imagine the victims as people you love as you read the accounts.

A Weapon of Hate

Patrick Wood Crusius, age 21 at the time of the killings, purchased the WASR-22 rifle online. The weapon is a semi-auto version of the AK-47 licensed for manufacture by the Romanian Cugir Arms Factory. This rifle is less expensive than the AR-15-style assault rifles often preferred by American gun enthusiasts. 

Buying a gun online is made possible by Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives regulations that require that weapons purchased online to be picked up by the buyer at a licensed dealer’s establishment after filling out and passing the Federal background check.  

Any firearm is a tool that drives a projectile to strike a target through the physics of containing and directing a rapid expansion of gasses induced by an explosion. As a former hunter and shooter, I’ve rolled rabbits on the farm, plunked doves from the sky, and plinked cans for the sheer joy of watching them fly. This kind of shooting puts food on the table or provides fun target shooting.

But the AK-47, AR-15, and other military-grade weapons were designed as weapons of war. The only difference between those of the Armies of the world and these are removing full-automatic fire capability. With 20 and 30-round magazines, they were designed to kill many men quickly – the very definition of a weapon of mass destruction. Thus, when you put this tool in the hands of someone who hates passionately, that firearm becomes a weapon of hate that destroys lives. 

The Anchondos – From Celebration Planning to Tragedy

On the morning of August 3rd, Andre and Jordan set about their everyday lives as any family with three small children would. Cleaning, dressing, feeding, and caring for each child as loving, doting parents do the world over. The catalyst for their destination with tragedy was that they needed to buy party favors for Skylar’s 6th birthday they planned to celebrate the next day. Thus, to preserve the surprise, they dropped the 5-year-old off at her cheerleading school and headed to Walmart.

As they drove, imagine Jordan telling Andre in an excited, almost giddy tone she wanted to buy paper party cone caps, colorful blow-out whistles, and matching plates and cups. Would she be one to pick up a cake at Walmart, with bright “Happy Birthday!” and tiny sugar balloons decorating the cake? Or would she have been comfortable enough in the kitchen to bake her child’s special celebration cake? 

Was Andre attentive, or nod to everything she said, his mind elsewhere, perhaps thinking about some aspect of his new business? You can picture this because they were a typical family going about their everyday life as they pulled into the El Paso Cielo Vista Walmart. 

Given that Paul was only two-months-old, Jordan would have unfolded a stroller or secured a wrap around her shoulders, as a young baby still requires support for his head. Jordan sorted out carrying Paul, perhaps cooing sweetly at him and touching the tiny button nose, 

Andre locked up the car. They headed into the store, where a smiling white-haired lady in a blue Walmart vest greeted them warmly. Grabbing a cart, Andre looked within the store to determine the direction of the party favors. Bearings fixed, he trundled the cart trailing Jordan and Paul.

Having found and loaded a complete set of brightly colored hats, plates, cups, and the party blow-out whistles, they headed to the grocery half of the store. Perhaps Jordan read her list of the groceries she needed to purchase or sweet treats for the party. However, they were startled by the POP! POP-POP, as the unmistakable sound of death rents the air. The screams that ensued induced instant panic in Andre and Jordan. 

Accounts described Walmart managers calling out a code Brown – warning employees to exercise active shooter drills. The couple likely abandoned their cart and ran, seeking some way out. But as they entered the fateful aisle, they encountered the grim death face of the shooter, AK-47 at the ready. Jordan likely turned to protect Paul, and as she did, Patrick Crusius fired, multiple shots pounding her body to pieces, and one bullet grazed the baby. Jordan collapsed, crushing her baby’s bones, causing him to wail at the shock and pain. 

Andre threw himself between the shooter and Jordan and Paul. Crusius continued shooting, tossing Andre’s bullet-riddled body alongside his family. Jordan died there, and Andre died a few hours later – a family shattered by a weapon of hate.

Reflection on the Hateful State of Mind

Mr. Crusius killed 23 people and injured another 23, and his actions impacted the lives of hundreds of people in the El Paso community and beyond. The motivation for Mr. Crusius’s brutal killing spree was found in the Manifesto he wrote. His Manifesto described a screed of anti-immigrant hate based on the rantings of the “replacement theory” crowd that posits that democrats encourage immigration so that the immigrants will vote for democrats and slowly replace all conservatives with democrats. He also celebrated the Christchurch, New Zealand, mosque shootings, expressing admiration for the killer.

We know from his manifesto and comments on 8chan that he felt compelled to stop the “Hispanic invasion.” It was reported that in his interrogation with the police, he confessed to targeting “Mexicans.” Based on these screeds and his confession, the Federal Government charged him with 22 counts of committing a hate crime resulting in death and other charges for the injuries he caused. On February 8th, 2023, Patrick Wood Crusius pleaded guilty to 90 counts and received 90 consecutive life terms. He still faces a capital murder trial in Texas courts.

My focus here is the mental state of Mr. Crusius leading to and during the killing. According to news accounts, he drove eleven hours from the Allen, Texas, area north of Dallas to the El Paso Walmart. He traveled this distance to find a large population of “Mexicans.” That’s eleven hours, spanning the night and early morning. 

What occupied his mind on that long drive? Did he fantasize about aiming at and shooting the brown people he hated? Did he mentally practice swiftly swapping magazines to kill as quickly as possible? Did he reflect pensively on the actions he was about to take, or did he mentally rub his hands in glee and pride that his message would soon be broadcast to the world?

The court records are sealed as Mr. Crusius still awaits the Capital Murder trial. So I couldn’t access the investigative information that would have more carefully outlined his timeline. But, from news reports, he first walked into Cielo Vista Walmart to scope it out. He then returned to his vehicle and made one more edit to his manifesto, and republished it before grabbing his assault rifle and ammunition to begin fulfilling his malicious intent.

What is the state of mind of a man killing innocents? Did he note the fear on faces, dilated pupils, open mouths, screaming, scrambling away from him? Does he remember bullets flinging blood, bits of flesh, guts, or brains vividly, or did he wander, boots tracking blood, in a blind fog of hate, instinctively firing at whatever crossed his sight? 

The simple fact is that some people hate “other” people enough to seek to destroy them. Why is it that in this country, it is so easy for those who hate to obtain weapons of mass destruction designed to kill other men?

What Happened to “A Well Regulated Militia?”

The second amendment states, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

This part of the original Bill of Rights enshrines that people should not be deprived of their right to bear arms. However, the passage also explicitly mentions “well-regulated” and “militia.” This initial passage, however, was rent asunder from the second passage by the District of Columbia v. Heller case, in which the US Supreme Court decided in 2008 that the right to bear arms doesn’t rely on militia service.

In my utopian world, this country would follow New Zealand’s lead after the Christchurch mosque massacre and ban and confiscate all military-style assault rifles. Failing this, I propose one potential solution to reduce the availability and accessibility of firearms that most people recognize are explicitly designed for killing men. 

I propose that these war-purposed weapons be given the specific regulatory designation of “War Weapon” and regulated only to be possessed by local militia members while undergoing training. When not in use, they must be stored in federally-regulated, secure militia armories with the ammunition stored in a separate location to prevent anyone from being able to steal weapons and ammunition from the same arsenal. No one would be allowed to have these weapons in their home, as pistols and shotguns would be sufficient to defend one’s abode.

Though the militia would be locally based, it would be federally regulated to ensure the public’s safety. Anyone who has engaged in domestic violence or was found to have mental issues that could threaten others would not be allowed to participate in militias, nor would they be allowed to own guns. Finally, all members of militias would be required to swear or affirm that they would protect and defend the constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. As an addendum, they would swear to defend democracy against any person or group attempting to install an authoritarian government through overt or covert means.

Training of militia members would be required to ensure they can safely handle the weapons. In addition, one block of training would be a mandatory video/presentation showing gruesome photos and videos of victims of these weapons, including child victims. The consequences of using these weapons should be seared in the minds of militia members to hopefully quell a desire to use the guns except in the direst, nation-threatening circumstances.

In addition to using militia armories to reduce access to weapons of war, another proposal could be enacted to lower the body count of mass shootings. This is based on the decades-long federal firearms regulation that only permits hunters to have three shells in the chamber when hunting migratory species such as doves, ducks, and geese. If we have allowed this type of regulation for decades to protect ducks, then we should be able to regulate the number of shells for weapons to protect people. 

So how many rounds? Given a typical revolver holds six cartridges, I propose to set six rounds as the maximum capacity for all magazine-fed firearms. (Some 22-caliber revolvers have a nine-round capacity, but we’ll exclude those.) In addition, no one may carry more than two loaded six-round magazines with their weapon outside of a firing range. The penalties for this law must be very severe, including confiscation, hefty fines, and prison in egregious cases to discourage those who would hide their full-capacity magazines from officials. 

To those that posit that full-capacity magazines for these firearms would be needed to defend our nation from being overthrown, I suggest that the law be written to allow full-capacity magazines to be available only through militias who would be required to store them in armories and that they only are distributed if a national emergency is declared.

The Continuing Saga of Death

When returning home from a night class at Fort Gordon, Georgia, I watched a car tumble end-over-end, headlights spearing the sky as it crossed in front of me and landed in the ditch beside me. I stopped and looked in the car to find it empty. I scrabbled about the median, searching for the driver, and found him in the grassy ditch. He panted rapidly and grabbed my hand while I took his pulse at his neck with the other. I heard his panting and felt his pulse fade, and even in the dark, I watched the life disappear from his eyes. I performed CPR on him until the ambulance arrived, and they loaded us both up because they thought I was injured as I somehow was covered in his blood.

That was my first experience of death. Death of a private who fell asleep at the wheel returning to base. Accidents happen. Death happens. But the deaths of people at the hands of those pulling the trigger on guns are too often not accidents. They are preventable, as evidenced by how few deaths occur in nations that regulate firearms to prevent their spread and reduce access. 

According to the Gun Violence Archive, since the August 3rd, 2019, killing of 23 in El Paso, Texas, there have been 112 mass shootings, with 603 people killed and another 217 injured. These are needless, senseless losses that should be preventable if only, through sensible gun control, we as a nation choose to preserve life over possessing firearms.

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