Police: Armed man said he was testing his gun rights

His wife told him it was a bad idea. His sister reminded him of what had happened in El Paso, Texas, less than a week earlier, when a gunman killed 22 people after opening fire at a shopping center and Walmart.

But Dmitriy Andreychenko went ahead with his plan for a “social experiment,” according to police. The 20-year-old used a cellphone Thursday to film himself entering a Walmart in Springfield, Missouri, wearing body armor and carrying a loaded assault-style rifle. He said he wanted to test whether his Second Amendment rights would be honored in a public area.

Andreychenko claimed he did not anticipate customers’ panicked response, the Springfield police statement says.

“This is Missouri,” he told investigators, according to law enforcement. “I understand if we were somewhere else like New York or California, people would freak out.”

Prosecutors have charged Andreychenko of Springfield with making a terrorist threat, saying he recklessly disregarded the risk of causing a building evacuation by knowingly sowing fear in the wake of the El Paso mass shooting at the same retail chain.

Missouri is an open-carry state. In 2014, state law allowed anyone with a concealed-carry weapon permit to carry a weapon in the open, statewide, overriding local regulations. In 2017, Missouri became a “shall issue” state for concealed weapons, allowing anyone 19 or older to carry a concealed weapon or one in the open without a permit.

Dmitriy Andreychenko