From Sandy Hook to Uvalde

 I was previously a gun owner.  I had rifles and shotguns which I used for hunting. I owned a pistol which I thought of as a means of self-protection, particularly when living in a remote rural area.  I knew quite a few other sportsmen whose gun ownership and use resembled mine; none seemed to represent a threat to themselves or others. I ultimately lost interest in hunting and sold my long guns. I also got rid of the pistol; its mere presence in the home seemed more of a threat than that posed by any imagined intruder.

The fellow I sold the guns to was a long time photographer-friend who became a gun collector.  He fit the pattern of others I knew and his weapons did not represent any kind of direct threat to others. However, he was also a member of the National Rifle Association.  When the Sandy Hook school massacre happened in 2012, he immediately sent out an email bemoaning the likelihood that the event would spark a movement toward restrictions on gun ownership.

I don't know if that email from my friend represented an original concept or a passing on of an NRA-inspired missive.  In any case, I was stunned that a smart and seemingly decent individual would have such a first response to such an awful human tragedy. It seemed to me he had given priority to a toy collection over the bottomless grief of the Sandy Hook families.

Looking back now on that time I think my friend's reaction was fundamentally based on fear. He had suffered the loss of his home in a fire not long before in which he had lost a lifetime of photographic work along with his cameras.  To some extent I think he had developed a sense of identity tied to his gun collection and he felt threatened by any public move toward gun restrictions.

In fact, I think fear is at the base of the acquisition of all non-sporting weapons including pistols and assault rifles.  Such weapons are seen as sources of power to people who have underlying feelings of fear and inadequacy in regard to the protection of self and family. Most people who own such weapons do not really represent a threat to society because the reality is that the likelihood of an actual need for such a weapon is exceedingly remote.  There are, however, aspects of our fear-based gun culture which do contribute substantially to public safety.

A fundamental issue, I think,  is an empathy deficit among the weapons enthusiasts which is stoked by fear and which trumps basic rationality and decency.  Such an emotional response is fertile ground for the NRA and the unscrupulous politicians who accept NRA support or fear its power.  Which all leads to half of the civilian-owned arms in the world (about 390,000,000) being in the United States. Given our rates of suicide and daily shootings attributable to accident, gang membership or issues of impulse control, a large proportion of that vast stockpile is obviously ending up in the wrong hands.

Optimism about the chances of substantial gun control seems naive given the current political climate. It does seem that some common sense initiatives like background checks, gun by-backs and red flag laws may have a chance to chip away at gun culture since they did work in Australia and New Zealand.  I wonder also if term limits throughout the political spectrum might offer some beneficial immunity to gun lobby influence.  

"A Well Regulated Militia"

The NRA version:

guns and politics

I got to the Albuquerque City Council chambers a half hour before the sign-up would start for comments on the proposal to urge a state law establishing the Extreme Risk Protection Order (ERPO) Act.  There were already about twenty people ahead of me in the line, but I was still within the thirty commenter limit.  I didn't keep a tally of the speakers.  I think about two-thirds were NRA supporters, though I don't recall any stating that affiliation.

The first commenter was a heavily tattooed drama queen who held up a pocket copy of the Constitution and loudly demanded to know if any of the councilors had read it.  She slammed the booklet on the podium and made a series of derogatory statements about politicians.  That set the tone for many of the subsequent commenters, though none of the others delivered their message with such verve.

There were a lot of shade tree lawyers, along with a couple who professed expertise in police work and terrorism monitoring.  The common threads were claims about Red Flag laws violating various parts of the Bill of Rights and judgments that the proposed legislation would not obtain the desired results -- all the usual NRA talking points with no supporting evidence.

I decided to use my 1.5 minutes to highlight a couple well-established facts; that a substantial majority of Americans support Red Flag laws, and included in that group is a majority of gun owners who also support other common sense gun regulation.  I said I thought the ERPO Act resolution was a small step, but one in the right direction, and I urged the councilors to keep on with their initiative.

The proposal that the city urge passage of a state Red Flag law passed four to two.  One of the two against supporting the recommendation said about six times that she was for "reform", but then said she would not support the recommendation to the State legislature because there was no way to know exactly what the State law would say.  That same pathetic evasion was also cited by the other "no" voting councilor.  Three other councilors did not show their faces at the meeting.

So now New Mexicans will have to wait for 2020 to see what happens with the Red Flag law and other gun control measures.  As is always the case, a lot of momentum toward gun regulation has built up following the latest horrific massacres.  It remains to be seen how much of that momentum can be sustained long enough to force the law makers to take action.

Meanwhile, there are a lot of excellent articles appearing every day on the subject of gun violence and how it might be reduced:

A chill in the air: The problem of teen suicide (Searchlight New Mexico)

Can We Prevent Mass Shootings By Preventing Suicide? (FiveThirtyEight)

Why extreme risk protection orders can make a difference (The NM Political Report)

guns and bombs

There were a couple gun violence prevention events in Albuquerque last Saturday.  One was sponsored by congresswoman Deb Haaland.  The other was a town hall at the downtown Methodist Church under the direction of three city councilors who were encouraging the State to pass a Red Flag law.  We opted to go to the church event to hear what our rep, Ike Benton, had to say about the Extreme Risk Protection Order (ERPO) Act which he hoped the State legislature could be persuaded to adopt.  The panel of speakers included three city councilors, six state legislators and an Albuquerque Public Schools board member.

After the panel presentations, the group of a hundred or so attendees broke out into three discussion groups.  At that point we were informed that a bomb threat had been received.  We were told to stay in place while a police team swept the area.  No one gave much credence to the threat, but it was reassuring to see the quick law enforcement response.

Our discussion group included activists from several local groups and a lot of good ideas, mixed in with a large dose of frustration over the halting pace of reform efforts.  I contributed the thought that the ban on CDC research into gun violence did not mean that such research and information dissemination could not be conducted by other local entities including UNM and city government.

A thorough sorting out of fundamentals is essential to ensure that proposed remedies are based on a solid understanding of underlying psychological and political realities.  I said it seemed important to me to recognize that gun possession is often folded into identity formation which helps to explain the often irrational response to common sense firearms regulation by gun owners.  There are a lot of gun owners who clearly are not a threat to themselves or others, but who at the same time present a challenge to sensible gun control measures because of paranoid fears stoked by National Rifle Association propaganda.

Councilor Benton said that the NRA was planning to send a contingent of supporters to dominate the public comments at the upcoming City Council meeting.  He expressed the hope that some of us would also show up to challenge the NRA effort to stop city endorsement of the ERPO Act.  I decided to take a shot at getting on the public comment list on Monday.

guns

I first met John when I visited his home in Hillsboro in the course of doing in-home computer trouble shooting for a southern New Mexico internet service provider. John was an accomplished photographer and I went out of my way to visit with him whenever I was in the vicinity. We spent some time outdoors together doing photography and we also did a little target shooting.

 One night, I don't recall if it was a problem with the electricity or the gas, John's old house burned to the ground. He lost a lifetime of photographic work and pretty much everything else, including guns and photo gear. He lived in an rv on the home site for a time after the fire, and finally moved down from mountainous Hillsboro to river-side Truth or Consequences.

 I saw less of John after the move because my service area did not extend that far from Las Cruces. Then, in 2008 we moved to Albuquerque even further away, but we still stopped in to see John on occasional trips between Albuquerque and Las Cruces. John cultivated a circle of artist friends in T or C, continued to do some photography and began seriously collecting antique guns.

* * *

On December 14, 2012 Adam Lanza killed twenty 6 and 7 year old children at Sandy Hook Elementary School with an assault rifle, along with six adults at the school. He had murdered his mother at home before going to the school, and he finally shot himself after the massacre.

wikipedia

The next morning, John got on his computer and emailed everyone he knew to express his alarm over  Sandy Hook.  He was worried that the public reaction to the mass shooting would result in efforts to curb gun ownership.

I was appalled by the fact that, in the face of the deaths of all those children and the bottomless grief of parents, John's first thoughts were directed toward his gun collection.  It seemed an utterly obscene reaction, and it put an end to our friendship.

Since then, Sandy Hook-type incidents have been replicated many times, as have the reactions of NRA supporters which have seemed equally obscene as what John expressed.

(... to be continued)