Almost a year ago, a 20-year-old man walked into an elementary school in Connecticut and shot 20 school children and six adult staff members.
Since then, nearly 40,000 Oregonians—a number about half the population of Bend—have taken the time to apply for, and receive, a concealed weapon permit. During that same period of time—and for that matter, over the past 15 years since Kip Kinkel sprayed a school cafeteria in Springfield with bullets and killed two students—lawmakers have fidgeted with gun control laws, but made no significant changes. In Oregon, yes, applicants for concealed weapon permits are required to complete a gun safety class, but a 15-day waiting period has been dropped for instant criminal background checks (although, ironically, because of the soaring demand for concealed weapon permits, the wait has, de facto, stretched to nearly three months). Those sort of changes are essentially re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic—and offer no real solutions to the very real problem of shootings on school grounds.
In the near year since shootings at the Clackamas Town Center and in Sandy Hook, Conn., Deschutes County has been issuing concealed weapon permits at an alarming rate—a reported 300 each month; the equivalent of 10 each day. The number of concealed weapon permits in Deschutes County now exceeds 10,000—or, one for every 16 residents.
That number parallels state averages: Oregon State Police report one in 15 adults now hold a concealed weapon permit—a 50 percent increase since 2008, the year after a senior at Virginia Tech shot and killed 32. And regionally, these are the same trends: One in 12 adults in Washington hold a concealed weapon permit; in Idaho, the number is one in 16.
In issuing these permits, all three states in the Pacific Northwest follow roughly the same so-called “shall-issue” guidelines, a lax consideration which favors giving a permit to the person requesting. (Conversely, California follows “may-issue” rules, meaning the requestor must make a persuasive case for why he or she wants one. The difference is that only one in 550 adults there hold a concealed weapon permit; one-twentieth the ratio here.)
While some gun advocates argue that an increasingly armed citizenry will lead to a more regulated and safe environment, that rationale smacks us as a sort of Cold War mentality, stock piling so that fear instead of neighborly sentiments regulate our safety.
But, regardless of our opinions, the trend is towards more guns, without substantially changing gun control laws.
In the aftermath of 26 children and teachers killed last December, President Obama lamented that if that tragedy—and several other shootings in 2012—could not bring about sensible legislation, nothing could. A year later, nothing has happened, legislatively speaking.
In that vacuum of elected leadership, several private companies have set forward their own rules—most notably, last month, Starbucks announced that it was reversing an informal policy to allow patrons to carry concealed weapons into their coffeeshops.
But the most concerning debates are happening where it matters the most—at public schools and universities. In Oregon, guns ostensibly are not allowed on school grounds, but the law also provides an exception for concealed weapons. Likewise, the State Board of Education had banned weapons from campuses, but a state appeals court in 2011 knocked down that restriction. Point being: Nothing is being done to set forth reasonable and reasoned laws to manage gun ownership, while gun ownership soars.
We at the Source recognize that no matter how much editorializing we and other media outlets do, without political leadership to fashion reasonable laws—mental health checks, assault weapon bans—there will only be future schoolyard shootings. And, what’s more, those laws won’t exist unless some leadership truly steps forward with real suggestions.
That leadership does not exist. Sadly, we don’t even know to whom to give the Boot.
This article appears in Oct 10-16, 2013.
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Give the boot to idiot right-wingers who insist that putting sensible regulations on the ownership and use of guns is tantamount to abandoning our Second Amendment rights. Ever been to Australia? They have the right to own guns, and many of them do own guns, and yet they still manage to avoid having mentally ill people go on killing rampages every few months.
Must be some kind of fucking miracle, huh?
So basically, what I got out of this little lib tirade, was…
‘We at the Source recognize that no matter how much editorializing we do, nobody pays attention to us.’
As it should be.
So a deeply liberal anti gun tirade. I have been in law enforcement ten years. First and foremost Chicago has some of the toughest anti gun laws on the books and some of the nations worst gun violence . People, i.e. the person who wrote the article and the apparently the entire source weekly staff, seem to think taking away gun rights and legislating away our rights is the answer to gun violence and the Sandy Hook tragedy. It is not a gun control issue and the source staff seem to miss the reality here. It is a mental health issue, we had a very obviously mentally ill person who needed help and did not get any. I know evil exists , I have a seen it first hand. The article says rely on neighborly sentiments?? I am sorry when faced with a crazy person with a gun, you cant rely on neighborly sentiment, but a well practiced and lethal response to take them down before more tragedy can be dealt out, is an option. You reason with them and tell them to be neighborly and see where you get , while they are busy targeting you , I will take aim and take them down.
Gun control does not work, most guns like the one at Sandy Hook were obtained from other than legal sources. Yu advocate making things more difficult for law abiding citizens through gun control and legislation, when it does nothing to stop the person intent on doing harm. Disarming people, and legislating a over burdened and people even more makes no sense. We have legislated ourselves into a hole, we have more laws about how we do things than any other nation on this planet. What we don’t have is a government that has its priority’s in order. We have no real health solution for the poor and the mentally unstable. Obama care simply forces people to buy insurance, it does not un burden tax payers, or for that matter , create any viable solution for people. You want to see less violence, then try allowing people to have a living wage and get people off the government tit, because they have to be there to survive. Allow people to keep more of what they earned and protect the poor instead of heaping more legislation and tax burden upon them. Until we stop being a cold everyone for himself, greedy, step on and step over society with disconnected politicians who have no clue what its like to struggle to buy groceries, nothing will change. people will not get the care they need , crazy people with guns will commit acts of evil. We decided as a nation to have the right to bear arms, so now we must understand that , cherish or constitution and work within or society for change instead of forcing laws and control that will not work down our throats. I will stand right beside you while you appeal to someone’s neighborly sentiment while they are shooting, ill shoot back, lets see which one is more effective.