Byline: Tom Jackman

WASHINGTON - It's about a 590-mile drive from Shelbyville, Ind., to the U.S. Capitol, and Mark A. Mazza wanted to be prepared when he got to the nation's capital for a rally on Jan. 6, 2021. So he packed a .45-caliber revolver, loaded with both shotgun shells and hollow-point bullets, and a .40-caliber revolver.

"All I heard about in Indiana," Mazza said, "is D.C. is the murder capital."

So he carried the two loaded guns with him from the "Stop the Steal" rally at the Ellipse, led by President Donald Trump, to the Capitol and soon began brawling with police, court records and videos show. In his first fight with officers on the west side of the Capitol, he fell down and his Taurus "Judge" .45-caliber handgun dropped out of his waistband, court records state.

Rather than retrieve it, Mazza pushed on, and wound up at the front of the mob assault on officers in the Lower West Terrace tunnel. Videos show he helped lead the "heave-ho" push at a door which partially crushed one officer and swiped a baton from another before smashing the officer's hand with it. He then recruited more rioters to join in on the extended push to break through into the Capitol halls, videos show.

"I may go down as a hero," Mazza told Capitol Police investigators two months later, calling himself a patriot and saying he was angry about the state of the country. He told the police that if they came back to arrest him, "put me in a fed . . . I just want three squares and a nice clean room, someone takes care of my health care and I'm good."

Mazza, 57, got his wish to be put in a fed. A federal judge Friday sentenced him to five years in prison, for assaulting...