Las Vegas Weekly

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Another week, another story that makes you shake your head and think, What are we going to do about guns? Make that two stories.

First, there was the arrest of Democratic Assemblyman Steven Brooks of North Las Vegas, taken into custody on January 19 for allegedly threatening Assembly Speaker-elect Marilyn Kirkpatrick. Police found a gun and 41 rounds of ammunition in Brooks’ car, and the Las Vegas Sun reported that family members told police he was “willing to have a shootout.”

Then there was the tragic tale of a Metro Police officer who reportedly called 911 and confessed to shooting his wife and child before lighting his home on fire and killing himself on Monday.

In both cases, people who have the public trust—a police officer and an elected official—allegedly abused that privilege in the most vicious way possible, by committing or intending to commit an act of grave violence. And in both cases, it’s not hard to imagine how the story could be rewritten if firearms weren’t involved. Last week, President Obama vowed to “put everything I’ve got” into increased gun control legislation. As these two local stories show, that might not be enough.