Yes, Let’s DO Talk About Gun Control

And right now.  No, now is not the time to wait for a while and mourn.  Now is also the time to get mad.

You’d have to be living in a cave at the moment not to know that yesterday, a gunman entered a K-4 elementary school in Connecticut and murdered 20 children aged 5-10, and six adults.  Then himself.  And prior to that, his mother, at home.  So counting him, 28 people.  As far as we know.

11 days before Christmas.

The weapons he used were two semi-automatic handguns:  a Sig Sauer, and a Glock 9mm.  He left the Bushmaster .223 M4 rifle in the car.  Not enough hands, I guess.

If the assault weapons ban in the U.S. had still been in place, his mother (to whom the guns were registered) would not have been able to purchase them. At least not from a federal or state licensed dealer.  Gun shows, transactions between individuals, doesn’t count.  They were classified as assault weapons because they are capable of firing up to 32 rounds using an extended clip.  But it requires a trigger pull each time it fires, as opposed to fully automatic, which only requires one trigger pull and keeps firing until you let go.

The meager gun laws we do have in the U.S. already do say that you can’t buy a gun if you’re an ex-felon, or if you’re mentally ill.  The latter prohibition is big enough to drive a truck through.

I’ve read of gun dealers who refused to sell a gun to someone who acted strange, even when the buyer’s background check was “clean”.  We need more people like that.

Which brings me to the National Rifle Association (NRA).  Whom I hate.  But first:  I’ve owned handguns.  I know many, many people who own weapons of various kinds, and who are members of the NRA.  The NRA does a very good job–and they may be the only organization that does–at teaching about gun safety, even to kids.  They conduct classes and training, for children and adults.  But somewhere along the line, the NRA has gone off the rails.  Now they are a major lobbying organization, and they have adopted a “slippery slope” philosophy:  ANY gun control is a step toward banning guns for everyone.  So they vigorously fight any response to even the most heinous gun crimes.

But control is not a ban.

You would think they would understand this, but logic is not involved here.

One of the arguments put forth regarding the ban of assault weapons is that as long as criminals and crazy people can still get them, you, as a law-abiding citizen, must be free to buy evermore increasing firepower to match what the criminals have.  What about the concept of preventing criminals from having that firepower?  Then you wouldn’t need it yourself.  You could (eventually) de-escalate.  It will take time.  Because the criminals can still buy those weapons at gun shows and from each other.

The assault weapons ban in the U.S. expired in 2004.  It’s time to bring it back. But improve on it.  It was wimpy in the first place.

Only in Florida (Or Maybe Not)

Due to our friends, the NRA (with special thanks to Marion Hammer), last year the Florida legislature enacted a statute saying that all gun laws are the province of the State.  Any counties or cities which had their own ordinances were required to repeal them and were prohibited from enacting any others.

So an interesting development has taken place.  In the Meadow Hills neighborhood in Tallahassee, a guy named Lear is complaining about one of his neighbors, Cowart.  Cowart is shooting squirrels in his back yard with a 12-gauge shotgun loaded with buckshot.  Lear says this is dangerous.  Cowart says he only shoots squirrels on the ground, not in the trees.  Lear and other neighbors dispute this, and say they are finding buckshot in their yards.  It used to be illegal to shoot a firearm in residential areas here, but no longer.   A slight oversight on the part of the State legislature.

So this year, the Florida legislature enacted an amendment to the statute, saying it’s illegal to “recklessly or negligently discharge a firearm on any property used as a dwelling”.  When that happened, Lear complained again.  And you can guess what happened.  Nobody knows what “reckless” or “negligent” means.  For the most part Lear is complaining to the wrong people.  He’s complaining to local authorities.  He did get one thing right.  He complained (filed an affadavit) with the State Attorney’s office.  You are always better off to ask a State law enforcement agency to enforce a State law.

For instance, murder is a State law.  Local authorities are allowed to investigate and arrest suspected murderers.  But only the State can charge and prosecute them.  People, for the most part, do not understand how government works.

The State Attorney cited a State law that it is legal for people to shoot nuisance, fur-bearing animals which cause damage to private property.  And Cowart says the squirrels are eating his wiring.  (I wonder if anybody proved that?) So Lear lost again.  For now.  He needs to get to the right people with his concerns (the legislature).  And just in case you think Lear is some kind of pacifist squirrel-hugger kind of guy, he is a Navy veteran and a member of the NRA himself.

Which brings me to the NRA (again).  I hate them.  If they had a lick of sense, as we say in the South, they would support reasonable gun-control measures.  Instead, they have been hijacked by the all-or-nothing people.  ANY gun control or registration is like the promise of some future Armageddon.  They oppose all efforts to regulate guns, and operate on the Slippery Slope Theory. “When you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns”.  What about the concept of trying to keep guns out of the hands of outlaws?  Granted, that will be imperfect, but it would help.

I decidedly don’t hate gun owners, or hunters. or hunting, or personal protection with guns.  The people I know who own guns are fanatics about safety and aren’t fanatics about regulation, and are members of the NRA.  They would NEVER shoot squirrels in their neighborhoods.

The NRA is in a perfect position to advise and help construct reasonable gun control regulations.  Instead, their position is that no such laws are acceptable.  (See:  Slippery Slope.)  Somebody needs to stage a coup.  What we need is a regime change at the NRA.

Guns At Work

Many companies, if not most companies, including my own, have a prohibition against possession of firearms by employees on company property. 

But in 2008, the Florida Legislature in its infinite wisdom passed a law called the Preservation and Protection of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms in Motor Vehicles Act, commonly known as the Guns At Work law.  In a nutshell, the law states that persons with a concealed weapons permit may keep weapons in their vehicles while at work.

The law was heavily pushed by the NRA, specifically by Marion Hammer, who is a Florida lobbyist and past president (and first female president) of the NRA.  Opposed were the Florida Chamber of Commerce, the Florida Retail Federation, Disney, and Wal-Mart, all of whom are powerful interests.   That being the case, I’m surprised the law passed.  It’s also a sign that hell has frozen over when I’m on the same side as Wal-Mart.  Actually, I have mixed feelings about the law.  But frankly speaking, as an employer, I don’t ever want to be concerned that I may piss off some employee who goes to his car at lunch and pulls out a weapon.  I already go out of my way to be respectful, even if I have bad news (like “You’re fired”) but that’s good practice anyway. 

On Monday, I learned the following information about an employee who had been with us for less than a month:  he was feeling discriminated against; he’d been admitted for inpatient psychiatric treatment twice last year; and he had a handgun in his truck.  Which he pulled out and displayed to a security guard at my workplace.  It wasn’t so much that he had the gun, it was the context.  My boss, who operates in another city but was in town, said, “He has to go” and volunteered to handle it so as to take the focus off me and my second-in-command person, who was the true target of this person’s paranoia. 

I insisted on calling the police to be present.  My boss said he didn’t think that was necessary.  I insisted some more, and whined, so he finally agreed to humor me.  From the minute I called the police, it was clear that they took the situation very seriously, perhaps in part because the security guard was so specific about the weapon…I was able to tell them it was a Taurus .357 Magnum.  So this was not a fantasy, we think he may have a gun.  It was, he has a gun and this is what kind. 

Two officers showed up, one of whom was wearing his bulletproof vest outside his shirt.  That is a very fearsome and intimidating sight. 

My boss planned to tell the employee that since he was in his 90-day probationary period, it just wasn’t working out.  I lobbied for telling him we knew he had a gun, but I was overruled both by the boss and by the police.  Much of what I know now I learned since this incident, and the main thing is that the operative word in the law is “concealed”.  Assuming he had a concealed weapons permit, it is a violation of the law to take it out of concealment for any reason except to use it, and that has to be guided by strict definitions of self-defense. 

In any case, my boss delivered the news with no mention of the gun.  The employee handed his keys to me.  Then he asked me to go with him to a storeroom where he had some personal items.  The police said, “No.  She can’t go.  We’ll go.”  My boss went too.  Once in the storeroom, the employee pulled a knife from his pocket which he intended to use to cut some twist ties, but who knew that?  That by itself tells me what poor judgement the guy had.  Had it been me, faced with two armed police officers, I would have asked permission to pull my driver’s license out of my wallet.

Apparently the reaction was swift.  My boss said the next thing he knew, one of the officers pushed him out of the way and said “Stay behind me.”  The two officers arranged themselves in an L-shaped formation, to prevent crossfire, and my boss said he heard a sound he’ll probably be hearing in his dreams for some time to come–the sound of both officers simultaneously unsnapping their holsters. 

In the end, the guy left peacefully and everyone was safe.  But it could have been otherwise. 

Oddly enough, the same day this happened, Timothy Egan of the NY Times posted an entry on his blog called The Guns of Spring. http://egan.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/08/the-guns-of-spring/?ref=opinion  Here’s a quote: 

“If it was peanut butter or pistachio nuts taking down people by the dozens every week, we’d be all over it. Witness the recent recalls. But Glocks and AKs — can’t touch ‘em. So we’re awash in guns: 280 million.”  I don’t know the answer.  There is something to the NRA slogan, “If you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns.”  And yet, Egan notes that he lost a nephew to gun violence and can’t help but take it personally.  This week, it became personal to me.