Gun-toting soccer moms a scary thought in D.C. area, but not out west By Fredrick Kunkle Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, August 18, 2010; C01
PHOENIX -- In the red rock and sand of the Arizona desert, just past the retirement villages and golf greens that have made this sun-worshipping city famous, sits the biggest public shooting range in the United States. Not far away are the Wal-Marts where Arizonans pay Sun City retirees to wait in line when a new ammo shipment arrives, lest the supply run out. Residents have the right to carry handguns openly, and starting last month residents who have no criminal records and are at least 21 also are able to carry concealed weapons just about anywhere, without the bother of getting a permit. The full embrace of firearms is just as fervent to the north in Montana, where nearly two-thirds of all households have firearms. Montanans feel so strongly about their right to own guns for hunting, fending off grizzlies and -- if it comes to it -- fellow humans that lawmakers passed a measure last year that challenges the federal government's authority to regulate guns made and kept in their state. ( <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/14/AR201008140 2547.html> Break-in victim sues after police deny concealed handgun permit) This is the gun culture of the American West, and it is from here that the latest challenge to the District's firearms laws has come. Sen. John McCain <http://www.whorunsgov.com/Profiles/John_McCain> (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Jon Tester <http://www.whorunsgov.com/Profiles/Jon_Tester> (D-Mont.) have proposed a law that they say would sweep away overly stringent regulations imposed by the D.C. Council after the Supreme Court struck down the city's 32-year ban on handguns. Council member Phil Mendelson (D-At Large) said the McCain-Tester bill could gut the District's regulatory powers, including laws that are stricter than most states about keeping guns away from people with records of domestic violence. He also said the law shows a disregard for the realities of the District, where guns mean drive-bys, holdups and intimidation more than sport, tradition and the American way. "The national debate about guns just misses that they are very different cultures," Mendelson said of the District and much of the rest of the country. "It's like a psychology, a mind-set, as to how people as a group think about guns." McCain and Tester declined requests for interviews. But their bill reflects a philosophy that seems part of the American West's genome. Even Arizona's flag, based on a design created by the team captain of the former territory's rifle team during a national rifle match almost a hundred years ago, symbolizes the way guns are woven into the state's politics and culture, whether for self-defense or sport. "You think golf forces you to focus -- try holding a deadly weapon in your hand," says Pamela Gorman, who helped ease gun laws as a state senator and is running for Congress. Gorman, who frets that no one makes stylish holsters for her Glock .45, ran a campaign <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqnjzONrPiA> ad showcasing her skills with a machine gun. The ad was mocked <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXj-4w4Reiw&feature=related> by MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, but Gorman says she has never flinched from backing the Second Amendment and likes to talk of bonding at the range with her 14-year-old son, Ryan, and his AR-15 rifle. "I kind of think it's terrific that he likes to go out and shoot off rounds, and he takes dance class, and he's in theater, and he plays football," Gorman says. "It's just part of an all-around American kid's experience." * * * If the Ben Avery shooting range is not the heart of Arizona's gun culture, it's close to it. More than 220,000 shooters a year test their firepower at ranges covering more than 1,500 acres of desert on the outskirts of Phoenix. "It's a Phoenix Point of Pride," said Noble C. Hathaway, president of the Arizona State Rifle and Pistol Association, referring to a community promotional designation. "All my kids and grandkids grew up out there." On a June evening that had cooled to a mere 110 degrees, more than a dozen women waited for a timed competition as Carol Ruh, president of the Arizona Women's Shooting Associates, went over safety rules. The group's oldest member is 89. The youngest is Susan Bitter Smith's 16-year-old daughter, who has brought her AR-15 semiautomatic rifle and her American history homework to the range. Some look like anyone's grandmother -- silvery hair possibly just styled at the salon, pastel-colored golf shirts, pressed slacks, orthopedically correct shoes -- but for the handguns on their hips. "Gotcha!" a woman yells after emptying her handgun at a brown silhouette partly obscured by a white silhouette -- a setup meant to suggest a crook and a hostage whom Ruh calls "a little old lady with groceries." As the range fills with a racket like very loud popping corn, Ruh attends to Monica Godwin, a 39-year-old single mother who is learning how to shoot for the first time. Godwin's eyes glitter with adrenaline; she has to think twice about whether the brand of handgun she bought is a Smith & Wesson. But Ruh, using a fake gun, demonstrates step by step how to handle a handgun -- hovering close, adjusting Godwin's hands, changing her stance. "Guns are like a pair of shoes," Ruh says. "You want them to fit right." Just down the road from the Ben Avery range is the Zip code with the most federal firearms licensees in Arizona (20), including McMillan Firearms Manufacturing, a family firm that makes precision rifles and synthetic rifle stocks used by big-game hunters and military snipers. Kerry D. McMillan, 55, whose father created the company, sounds puzzled about why places such as the District impose so many restrictions on an adult's access to firearms. Criminals don't obey the law anyway, he says. "To us, we don't see what the big deal is," McMillan said. "I'm surprised that the restrictions that exist now actually were ever passed, because I think law-abiding gun owners are as responsible with single-shot, bolt action, semiautomatic, handgun, revolver, even fully automatic weapons, as they would be one with the other." In the District, a person who wants to obtain a handgun must file forms with the D.C. police, take a five-hour safety class, undergo two criminal background checks, pass a multiple-choice exam, endure a 10-day waiting period and take the newly registered handgun to police headquarters for a ballistics test. And that's just to keep the gun at home. Except for retired law enforcement officers, private residents cannot legally carry open or concealed weapons in the District. The ATF lists only nine federally licensed firearms dealers, and the nearest public shooting range is the Maryland Small Arms Range eight miles away. In Arizona, a resident who has no criminal record need only visit a gun shop, pick out a gun, undergo a federally mandated, computerized background check, and walk out. As of July 29, Arizonans can carry their weapon concealed without a permit. "Out here in the Southwest, it's really a Wild West mentality. People are willing to accept the fact that people are walking around with guns on their hips," said Hildy Saizow, president of Arizonans for Gun Safety. But gun rights advocates say that the District's gun control laws -- not to mention prohibitions against murder -- did not prevent a drive-by shooting in March that involved illegal weapons. They also say that despite having nearly 158,000 people with concealed weapons in Arizona, their homicide rate of 6.3 per 100,000 is lower than the District's, 31.4. That's true of Phoenix, too, where the homicide rate is 10.5 per 100,000. And although most gun rights advocates skew <http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/gun_ control/69_say_cities_don_t_have_right_to_ban_handguns> Republican, Arizonans say that large numbers of Democrats embrace the Second Amendment. "Hell, if you're going to believe in free love and drugs and all that kind of stuff from the 1960s, you've got to believe in guns," said Jeff Smith, a former columnist for the Tucson Citizen who calls himself a "redneck liberal." Smith, 64, who is paralyzed from the chest down from a motorcycle accident, likes President Obama, dislikes Sarah Palin and thinks health-care reform should have included a single-payer government option. He also competes in long-range shooting events, casts his own lead bullets and gave his former wife a .38 special snub-nosed revolver for Mother's Day. His preferred weapon, the Sharps repeating rifle, is made in Montana. * * * The Shiloh Sharps Rifle Manufacturing Co., in the tiny town of Big Timber, Mont., is housed in a building that vaguely resembles Hollywood's idea of a saloon. Because of a backlog, customers wait as long as two years for a Shiloh Sharps rifle, which is an exact replica of the firearm patented by Christian Sharps in 1874. The company makes about 800 to 1,000 rifles a year, some of which have appeared as props in "Dances With Wolves" and other movies. Fully customized, some models run $5,000 each. Before taking a visitor onto the shop floor, owner Robert Bryan relates a little family history about members who formed cattlemen's associations, ran off rustlers and fought for statehood, often at the point of a gun. Among the Bryans' heirlooms is an original Colt revolver said to have killed a man in a poker game in the town of Alzada. Guns are such a part of the West's history, Bryan said, that his family worries about some of the attitudes imported by East and West Coast newcomers. When his wife took one of their Sharps rifles into an elementary school for show-and-tell, some of the children were excused from class at their parents' request. "This is something we don't even understand," Bryan says. Just then, Kyle Mobley, 49, a heavy-equipment operator from Bozeman, drops by with news. His daughter, ReAnn Wilson, 18, a senior at Belgrade High School, just got a scholarship to the University of Nebraska as a member of its shooting team. At the Big Sky Practical Shooting Club's match in Missoula, Gary Marbut looks as if he's dancing, except he has a gun. Starting with his toes on two black X's, Marbut pirouettes, draws his Glock and hustles through a maze of targets at the club's competitive match, one of the biggest shooting events in western Montana. Marbut, president of the Montana Shooting Sports Association, was the prime mover behind the Montana law challenging the federal government's authority to regulate guns in the state. The law was the first of its kind and inspired similar initiatives in other legislatures, including Virginia's. The match has brought shooters from Canada and from various walks of life, including Carrie Jamrogowicz, 34, a transplanted New Jerseyan who builds Web sites. She never saw a real gun until she moved to Montana, and then she saw them everywhere and decided she needed one for self-defense. Midway through the event, Doug Worley, 40, and his 10-year-old son, Kyler, approach Marbut. Peering through yellow shooting glasses, the boy also wants to be a competitive shooter. "It's important for them to know about guns," said Worley, a security guard from Missoula. His other children have also learned to shoot, except for his 6-year-old daughter. But Worley said he will teach her to shoot, too, with a .22-caliber rifle he has already picked out. It's pink. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [email protected]. -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [email protected] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: [email protected] Subscribe: [email protected] Unsubscribe: [email protected] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtmlYahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
