“I fear for, and pity those that are being indoctrinated to fear that which is their best means of self defense,” Lucas wrote. “People are also being indoctrinated to depend on government for their ‘safety,’ even when shown that government has clearly ruled that government doesn’t have the duty to protect us.”
In claiming the government does not have a duty to protect the citizens, Lucas was referencing his interpretation of rulings from the U.S. Supreme Court. He told the students the same thing, that the high court has ruled police have no duty to protect people from harm.
When talking to the students, Lucas said people have to protect themselves. He pointed to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2005 ruling in Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales and claimed the court found police have no duty to protect people from harm.
However, Jody Madeira, Indiana University Maurer School of Law professor, said the ruling from the Supreme Court is “much more complex” than Lucas suggests. She explained that a police officer’s promise to help can cause an individual to rely on that promise, which forms a special relationship and creates a legal duty to respond.
“It’s dangerous to undermine public confidence in the police and to increase public confidence in vigilante justice,” Madeira said. “If we all believe that the police won’t protect us and we all carry firearms, we’re just contributing to the problem because if everyone who reports to a crime scene trying to help is carrying a firearm, then no one knows who the bad guy is.”
A video of the entire conversation, recorded by a Burris student who was traveling with the group on Tuesday, shows Lucas and the students going back and forth about gun violence and school shootings. Lucas can be seen revealing his holster and gun at the 6:09 minute mark.
Lucas spoke with The Statehouse File Tuesday and defended his decision to flash the weapon.
“I just wanted to show that everyday people carry, and they are out every day among people that they have no idea are carrying, who are doing no harm, who are not threatening anybody. They simply want to have the ability to defend themselves and their loved ones from people who aren’t stopped by laws who aren’t stopped by morality,” Lucas said. “And that’s one of the questions I asked them … to please give me a law that I could submit and hopefully pass that will stop people that aren’t being stopped by the hundreds of laws already on the books.”
The students said they were caught off guard when Lucas showed his weapon. Alana Trissel, 17, said her heart dropped to her stomach.
“It was though all of my previous arguments were just invalid because I knew that at any given circumstance, he could end the entire conversation by choosing to end any of our lives,” Trissel said. “I just knew that that conversation wasn’t really a conversation because there was nothing I could say. I just felt unprotected and unsafe.”
Lucas is running for re-election in House District 69. His Democratic opponent, Trish Whitcomb, criticized Lucas for showing his gun.
“These students were obviously there for peaceful reasons. They were not there to discuss banning guns in any way,” Whitcomb said. “They were there to talk about gun safety. And it was Mr. Lucas who kept changing the subject back to the right to bear arms. … I don’t know, maybe he felt inadequate in his explanation and thought showing that gun would make a point to prove something about him or his point of view. But I thought the whole episode was inappropriate on his behalf.”
This latest controversy comes less than a year after Lucas pleaded guilty to drunk driving. According to news reports, Lucas ran his pickup truck into guardrails and briefly drove the wrong way on an Interstate 65 entrance ramp. Lucas attempted to drive home but, down to just one working tire, the truck was not drivable. He was detained by police after he was found walking along the road.
Police camera video from his arrest shows Lucas telling officers he has a gun in his waistband and that a round was in the chamber.
Whitcomb referenced the body cam footage of Lucas’s DWI arrest.
“So if he’s walking around the Statehouse with ‘one in the chamber,’ that doesn’t make me feel too safe,” Whitcomb said. “And I don’t know that that would make other people feel very safe.”
Errington reiterated the need for constituents, especially young ones, to feel safe advocating for their beliefs.
“I hope I can visit with these students again and reassure them that that was a really unusual encounter,” Errington said. “I don’t think they would find many legislators that make you feel so unwelcome and demeaned.”
