Of Tamir Rice, police shootings, “journalism” and racism

In a recent story in US News & World Report titled “Tamir Rice Shooting: Not Just a Tragedy How did a child with a toy gun get shot by police in an open-carry state?”, Joseph Williams makes the case that the shooting of Tamir Rice was wrong and racist.

Williams cites experts' (though he never tells us who these so-called experts are, or why he considers them experts) assertion that this was not just a tragic event. He makes the claim that “concrete factors” including, “systemic racial bias in society as well as law enforcement, a flawed justice system and a lack of willingness to hold police accountable for errors in judgment - including a seemingly selective interpretation of the state's controversial 'open carry' firearms law” - are to blame.

Williams continues:

Meanwhile, Buckeye State firearms advocates who fought in the legislature, in the courts and on the streets for the right to legally carry guns in public -- as advocates say Tamir did on the day he died -- they've deliberately kept quiet about his death. That's despite plans to push the state towards allowing college students to openly carry guns on campus, and to allow anyone to carry a gun in public without a permit.

It seems he is referring to a group, or more specifically to Buckeye Firearms Association, Ohio’s largest and most influential group lobbying on behalf of Second Amendment rights. (There is no “Buckeye State Firearms.")

While he claims that we have “deliberately kept quiet” about Rice’s death, he never contacted me or apparently anyone else at BFA about this story. We have never shied away from this story, and I and others at BFA have talked with every reporter that has asked our perspective on the tragic events that lead to the fatal shooting of Rice.

Even if we excuse all this as a mistake or even just sloppy journalism, one can’t get past the blatant (and seemingly coordinated effort by many in the media) to make this about open carry. These is no possible way that Willams does not understand the difference between legally carrying a firearm in a holster, openly or concealed, as millions of Americans including police officers do every day, and drawing that firearm and pointing/shooting it.

Rice did not trigger a 911 call and his encounter with police by legally carrying a gun. He did it by shooting the gun in a reckless manner, or at least giving the impression that he was doing so. When the police arrived, he did not keep his hands up, follow instructions and do what should be common sense - keep his hands away from his gun. He grabbed his gun as if he were about to kill the arriving police.

Rice’s family tell us he was a good kid who would not hurt anyone, even if the gun he was carrying was a firearms instead of the pellet gun he was actually carrying. I’ll take their word on that. But the police had no way of knowing that when they arrived on scene. Tragic? Yes. Criminal? Unlikely. For those who insist otherwise, prove your case, as the prosecutor would have had to do in a court of law. Stories like Williams’ can get people mad, and maybe even rioting (endangering more lives) but only because they make false claims and ignore obvious facts.

Ohio is an open carry state. A person does not need training, or a license, or a background check to openly carry a firearm in Ohio. But that does not mean everyone can legally open carry wherever and however they want. State and federal firearms disability laws still apply, as do laws banning guns in certain locations, as well as laws about aggravated menacing, assault, reckless endangerment and all other laws.

Yet Williams quotes Representative Alicia Reece (D) posing the question “If we have an open-carry state, why was it assumed that he was breaking the law?”

Maybe it was because he was drawing the gun and aiming it!

Or maybe it was because, when police arrived, Rice “reached for the gun in his waistband.” Anyone who understands basic “action vs. reaction” time understands that waiting to see if Rice’s intentions were good or bad is basically betting one’s life that the suspect whose prior actions were clearly suspect now had good intentions. I thought that everyone understands that telling police to just trust their lives to suspects with guns is wrong, but apparently Williams and Represented Reece do not.

Reece also apparently gave Williams false information. He says she told him that "the Republican-majority state legislature, which in 2012 pushed past a veto by then-Ohio Gov. Robert Taft, made the right to openly carry a gun the law of the land." Anyone with a basic understanding of history (or the Internet and a “Google” search) would know that the veto-override of Governor Bob Taft (R) on HB 347 (in 2006, not 2012) was about statewide preemption and had nothing to do with open carry, which has long been the law in Ohio - long before it was cited by the Ohio Supreme Court in Klein v Leis back in 2003.

I emailed Williams almost a week ago to ask some questions and try to understand his perspective, but he never responded. It is no wonder that media is not trusted – they clearly have a bias and bent over backwards to confuse the issue with false statements in this case.

The death of a child is sad. Police brutality is ugly. Racism is worse. But the cry of racism by those who themselves have an unwarranted bias against others is worse still.

It makes life worse for all the real victims, and ensures there will be more of them to write about to sell their magazines.

Jim Irvine is the Buckeye Firearms Association President, BFA PAC Chairman and recipient of the NRA-ILA's 2011 "Jay M. Littlefield Volunteer of the Year Award," the CCRKBA's 2012 "Gun Rights Defender of the Year Award," and the SAF's 2015 "Defender of Freedom Award."

Additional Information:

No, Tamir Rice Was Not “Open Carrying,” You Race-Baiting Liars.