By Kyra Howard | The Statehouse File
For The Tribune
INDIANAPOLIS — Students from Burris Laboratory School in Muncie who were visiting the Statehouse on Tuesday say they felt threatened after Rep. Jim Lucas, R-Seymour, opened his coat and flashed a handgun.
The students, members of Students Demand Action, had traveled to Indianapolis to attend the annual Advocacy Day held at the state capitol to ask lawmakers to do more to curb gun violence.
When the students encountered Lucas on an elevator in the Statehouse, he struck up a conversation and asked them why they were at the legislature. The students responded they were there to talk to lawmakers about their concerns about guns. Lucas subsequently invited the group to “step outside and have a quick” conversation about the issue.
A video made by one of the students, Makynna Fivecoats, 17, captures Lucas, the students and a parent chaperone, Alison Case, discussing gun laws and school shootings. A few minutes into the discussion, Lucas flashed his gun to the teenagers by lifting his blazer.
“I’m carrying right now,” Lucas told the group.
Speaking to TheStatehouseFile.com after the incident, the students said Lucas’ action made them feel unsafe and unprotected.
“My heart sank to my stomach,” Fivecoats said. “I genuinely felt very unsafe in that moment. And I really just wanted the conversation to kind of end after that.”
“It kind of almost felt like a threat to me,” Fivecoats continued. “I want to say that’s not how he meant it, but when you show someone that you have a gun on you, there’s no way really other to mean (anything) besides a threat.”
A short time later, Lucas became frustrated when another student, Alana Trissel, 17, began saying her worries about gun violence were distracting her from worrying about normal teenager things. The lawmaker then abruptly ended the conversation and walked away.
When contacted by TheStatehouseFile.com later and told the students were threatened by him flashing a gun, Lucas shrugged off the incident. He said he was “simply showing an inanimate object” in order to prove a point about guns.
“People that want to have adult conversations, I think, need to be able to handle adult situations,” he said, referring to the students. He added he felt they did not handle the situation well “if they felt intimidated by somebody, like myself, just simply showing them something that is protected by our Constitution.”
The conversation included a back-and-forth between Lucas and the students. Lucas told the students the police are not obligated to protect them, so they needed to be prepared to protect themselves. He brushed off the students’ comments about the impact of school shootings on their lives, saying no law is going to fix gun violence.
Also, Lucas told the students he was talking about facts and they were talking about feelings.
Case, the chaperone, said she felt like they were “talking to a wall.”
“It’s disheartening. I think it’s a reason why people don’t go out and vote because they feel like it doesn’t matter. I was a little bit defeated, but I told the girls I was so proud of each and every one of them,” Case said. “They all spoke up, every single one of them. And I was so proud of them for that. So for them to keep doing that, even if you don’t feel like you’re heard, keep doing that.”
After Lucas ended the conversation, Case and the students left the Statehouse to get lunch. They then returned to Muncie.
Burris Laboratory School is a part of Teachers College, Ball State University and Muncie Community Schools, according to the Burris website. Greg Fallon, associate vice president of university communications and digital strategy for Ball State, said the university had no comment on the situation.
A video of the entire conversation was recorded by another Burris student who was traveling with the group. Lucas can be seen revealing his holster and gun at the 6:09 mark.
Lucas made a similar statement four years ago during a meeting with constituents in his district when a 12-year-old asked a question about teachers carrying handguns, according to The Republic. The lawmaker told the crowd he was carrying and asked if that scared any of them. The Republic estimated 20 people indicated they were scared. He also said he carries everywhere he goes, including the Indiana Statehouse.
Talking to TheStatehouseFile.com, Lucas said guns are part of everyday life. He then shifted the interview, asking the reporter how she protected herself when walking to her car at night after work.
“No moral human being wants to ever think about having to take a life,” Lucas said, “but again, now going back to the issue of you working late at night, if you will get into your garage or to your car in a parking garage and you saw two or three men coming your way — which is a very real possibility in downtown Indianapolis — and you overheard them laughing about what they were going to do with your body after they’re done doing things to you, would you rather have a cellphone or a handgun?”
Trissel said she went to the Statehouse believing the students, being the voice of youth, could make an impact. But the conversation with Lucas changed her perspective.
“Having … a lawmaker damn near threaten me was just such a scary interaction,” Trissel said. “I felt hopeless in the sense that there really is no change because there is no middle. I think that his whole demeanor and removing the feelings and the empathy from that argument really just made me feel unmotivated and really just scared of what there is to come.”