Sen. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, worked with a teen who was attacked by another teen who was wearing brass knuckles to craft Senate Bill 1183 — which would make the possession and transfer of brass knuckles a misdemeanor in Arizona.
Connor Jarnagan, 17, and his mother began advocating for the prohibition on brass knuckles after the teen was attacked and punched in the back of the head by a brass-knuckle-wielding member of the Gilbert Goons in the parking lot of a Gilbert In-N-Out in December 2022.
The Gilbert Goons are a group of affluent teens who have allegedly perpetrated numerous brutal attacks in the Valley, including one in Queen Creek in October that resulted in the death of 16-year-old Preston Lord.
“I immediately felt blood gushing down the back of my head, soaking into my shirt,” Jarnagan told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday.
After escaping his attacker, Jarnagan went to the emergency room to have his head stapled, and doctors told him if he had been hit an inch to the left, he could have been paralyzed or killed. Jarnagan later learned from police that attacks involving brass knuckles had become surprisingly common in Gilbert, especially at the In-N-Out where he was assaulted.
The teen prosecuted for the crime originally faced two felonies but was ultimately charged only with assault, Jarnagan said.
He urged Republicans and Democrats to come together to make it more difficult for teens to get their hands on these weapons, saying he supports gun rights, but that brass knuckles can’t be used for hunting or to defend oneself from a distance.
“Brass knuckles have no other purpose than to hurt people within close range,” Jarnagan said. “They were designed to injure and potentially kill.”
Bring back ‘public hangings’
But Sen. Anthony Kern, a Republican from Glendale, applied the claim that Republicans often make about gun restrictions to brass knuckles: That banning them would leave law-abiding citizens who want to use them for self-defense vulnerable to criminals who would use them regardless of the law.Kern proposed an amendment to the bill that would outlaw the use of brass knuckles only for minors, but later withdrew it after Sen. Anna Hernandez, D-Phoenix, pointed out that some of the teens involved in the violence in Gilbert were 18, so outlawing brass knuckles for minors would do nothing to stop their attacks.
“I don’t think outlawing brass knuckles is the way, at all,” Kern said. “I think we need to go after city attorneys and find out why they’re dropping these felonies.”
He added that he thinks the true issue is politicized prosecutors’ offices that drop felony charges too freely, leading to a “lawless society.”
“We need to get to the side of stricter penalties — public hangings, I don’t care,” Kern said.
The senators unanimously voted in favor of forwarding the brass knuckle ban, but Kern and Sen. Justine Wadsack, R-Tucson, said they likely wouldn’t support the bill when it comes before the full Senate unless it is amended.
Wadsack was the only member of the committee who said she actually owned a pair of brass knuckles, which were passed down from her grandfather who fought in the South Pacific during WWII. She said they were locked in a safe and that she doesn’t use them.
The bill will next be considered by the full 30-member Senate.
This story was first published by Arizona Mirror, which is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Follow Arizona Mirror on Facebook and Twitter.
