An Indiana man has been sentenced to 88 years in prison for a mass shooting at an Indianapolis bar last March after a judge rejected arguments by the man’s attorney that tried to pin the blame for the shooting on Indiana’s gun laws.
27-year-old Nicholas Fulk was convicted back in March for the shooting at a bar called Landsharks that killed Timothy Brown, who was helping out behind the bar that night, and left five others injured. At his sentencing on Monday, Fulk’s attorney argued that Brown’s death was really the fault of lawmakers, not the man who pulled the trigger.
The judge said she had received a letter from Fulk in which he indicated a lengthy incarceration would be a hardship to his four children and that he himself had a troubled childhood.
… It was left up to Defense Attorney Lucy Frick to plead her client’s case.
”We are here, in part, because of our government’s abject failure to protect us from gun violence. We would not be here if our government had made appropriate efforts to protect our community from gun violence,” she said. ”This is a complex social problem that cannot be laid at the feet solely of Mr. Fulk.”
Oh yes it can. As we saw in Boston yesterday, no matter how restrictive gun laws might be, violent criminals can and will find a way to get their hands on a firearm if they want one.
In this case, Fulk, whose “violent, dangerous and callous” criminal history (to quote the judge overseeing his sentence) dates back to the age of 14, pulled a gun that had been smuggled into the bar in a friend’s bra and put it in his pocket a few minutes before he started shooting. Fulk was already unable to legally possess a firearm because of his previous criminal history, so what “appropriate efforts” does Frick believe the government should take to keep violent offenders like Fulk from illegally accessing and acquiring a firearm?
I have no idea whether Frick, who serves as a public defender in Marion County, really believes that Indiana’s gun laws are partly to blame for Fulk’s actions, but if she does I suggest she peruse the amicus brief that public defenders in New York submitted to the Supreme Court in the Bruen decision.
New York’s gun laws are still incredibly restrictive, but at least the “may issue” licensing regime has gone away. In their amicus brief, the public defenders outlined some of the issues created by that discretionary policy.
For our clients, New York’s licensing regime renders the Second Amendment a legal fiction. Worse, virtually all our clients whom New York prosecutes for exercising their Second Amendment right are Black or Hispanic. And that is no accident. New York enacted its firearm licensing requirements to criminalize gun ownership by racial and ethnic minorities. That remains the effect of its enforcement by police and prosecutors today.
The consequences for our clients are brutal. New York police have stopped, questioned, and frisked our clients on the streets. They have invaded our clients’ homes with guns drawn, terrifying them, their families, and their children. They have forcibly removed our clients from their homes and communities and abandoned them in dirty and violent jails and prisons for days, weeks, months, and years. They have deprived our clients of their jobs, children, livelihoods, and ability to live in this country. And they have branded our clients as “criminals” and “violent felons” for life. They have done all of this only because our clients exercised a constitutional right.
Is that what Frick would like to see instead of Indiana’s permitless carry law? I certainly hope not.
Nicholas Fulk may have had an extraordinarily difficult childhood, but he was also 26-years-old when he pulled a gun and opened fire in a crowded bar. He was old enough to know better, and he was certainly old enough to be held responsible for his actions. The vast majority of individuals who grow up in difficult circumstances don’t go on to commit a string of violent crimes starting in their teens. In fact, most of them won’t ever commit a violent offense, regardless of what the gun laws in their community look like.
I understand that defense attorneys are required to provide the best arguments possible for their clients, and Fulk didn’t give Frick much to work with. Maybe her arguments during sentencing were just the best that she could come up with and don’t really represent her views on gun control. I’d like to think that’s the case, but either way, I’m glad that the judge rejected her rationale for Fulk’s actions and is holding him accountable for what he did.
Editor’s Note: The American people overwhelmingly support President Trump’s law and order agenda.
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