Inside America s gun
Leaning against a scrub pine as preschoolers scurry about at his feet, Shane Gazda, father of 3 year old twins, recalls a conundrum he faced earlier that morning: whether to take his Smith Wesson .40 caliber handgun to a Groundhog Day celebration in this town s White Deer Park.
After all, what was once against the law in North Carolina carrying a concealed gun in a town park, square, or greenway is now, as of Dec. 1, 2011, very much allowed. To Mr. Gazda, who likes to shoot targets in his backyard, an event as innocent as paying homage to a rodent could turn dangerous if the wrong person shows up.
Part of it is being ready for cataclysm every day, says Gazda, a hospital maintenance engineer. And to be honest, I started carrying precisely to protect not just myself, but my patagonia w's better sweater jacket3family, and anyone around me who needs help.
A combination of favorable court rulings, grass roots activism, traditional fears of crime, and modern anxieties about government has led to what may be a tipping point on an issue that just a few years ago was one of America s most contentious. Gun rights have now expanded to the point where the fundamental question seems not to be should we be able to carry guns, but instead is where can t we carry them?
The answer: not very many places.
The new North Carolina statute, in fact, is one of hundreds of new gun friendly laws enacted by states and localities in the past few years alone. Mississippi lawmakers, for instance, recently voted to allow gun owners who take an extra safety class to carry hidden weapons on college campuses and in courthouses. Ohio has granted people with permits the right to bring concealed weapons into restaurants, bars, and sports arenas. A 2010 Indiana law stipulates that private business owners let employees keep guns in their cars when parked on company property. And New Hampshire, along with several other states, has removed restrictions on bearing arms in the ultimate politically symbolic place the State House.
In 2009, three times as many pro gun laws were passed in the United States as antigun measures a trend that experts say has only accelerated since then. Fully 40 states now mandate that anyone who asks for a concealed carry permit and meets the qualifications must be issued one. One result: The number of concealpatagonia w's better sweater jacket0ed weapon license holders in the US has gone from a few hundred thousand 10 years ago to more than 6 million today. In some parts of Tennessee, 1 out of every 11 people on the street is either carrying a weapon or has a license to do so. It is perhaps telling that New York City Mayopatagonia guide pants ukr Michael Bloomberg, who is prohibited from seeking another term and who has millions of his own money to spend, has become the preeminent gun control spokesman in the country. Freshman Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is worried about an overly armed populace, too: Last month, he proposed a statewide registry for handgun owners.
But the vast majority of the momentum on guns is on the side of people who want a .30 30 rifle in their cabinet at home and the right to carry a Ruger in their coat pocket anywhere. It is being driven, in part, by what could be called a militia of one mentality. While 20 years ago many people were arming themselves as part of a nostalgic identification with citizen armies, many today see carrying a gun in public as an essential right and a legitimate, even necessary, tool to ease peculiar and particular American fears about personal protection. And when you re going to insist upon this in public spaces or shared spaces like a basketball game or a park, then you re really intruding into where other people get their personal sense of safety.
How did embracing guns become so pervasive, and is the country safer or more dangerous as a result?
Garner is typical of the towns in America s new Gun Belt. The community of 26,000 people in the piney woods of North Carolina is decidedly not Northern, but neither is it completely Southern. It ipatagonia w's better sweater jackets a hamlet of conservative leaning Democrats, 70 percent of whom are transplanted Yankees.
It marries rural roots with a suburban mind set, all in a tableau of minivans and Easter egg hunts. Last year, the national Pony League softball tournament (for girls under 12 years of age) was held in White Deer Park. The town abuts more urban Raleigh, which perennially is listed as one of America s best places to livpatagonia clothes for salee.
It is here along the edges of America s urban renaissance that the right to carry movement is burgeoning, wpatagonia outlet store georgiaith women, young professionals, and college students among those leading what some call a new social formation of heat packers. On this day, two momspatagonia outlet store 0359, Barbara Frickman and Angela Reeves, are arriving with their strollers and toddlers to see Mortimer, Garner s famed groundhog. Both question North Carolina s new guns in parks law, but then acknowledge that they, too, have concealed weaponspatagonia better sweater jacket for women permits.
Around kids, guns are scary, but jogging on the greenway at night? That s a different story, says Ms. Frickman.
In that way, the two women represent a new, largely pro gun demographic. A majority of married women support the right to carry a concealed weapon in America, while single women, on the whole, do not. Overall, 85 percent of Americans support the right to keep and bear arms, according to a survey by Angus Reid Public Opinion. A 1991 poll by the Los Angeles Times put that number at 68 percent.
Yet Americans are hardly monolithic in their views. In a Monitor/TIPP poll conducted in February, a majority of those surveyed said they supatagonia w's better sweater jacket1pported more restrictive gun rights. Southerners, people between the ages of 18 and 24, and those earning between $50,000 and $75,000 a year made up the only major demographic groups where the majority favored less restrictive gun laws. Not surprisingly, gun rights are more broadly supported in factory towns and rural areas than in suburban and downtown zones.
Some of that ambivalence is reflected in Garner, where views on guns don t always fall along predictable lines. Ronnie Williams, for instance, is the town mayor and, as a born and bred North Carolinian, someone you d expect to be a committed gun rights enthusiast. He isn t.
Mr. Williams, in fact, is proud that he s never owned a gun. Since the patagonia everlong review kenmorestate s passage of the more expansive concealed weapons law, he has worked with the town council to designate places where guns remain forbidden.
On one hand, you have grandpas and grandmas who don t feel that a local basketball game or baseball game is the right place for guns because emotions can get so heated, says the affable mayor who, as any self respecting local dignitary, is dressed for the Groundhog Day celebration in a tuxedo and top hat. The other side of the message is, if I m walking down the greenway and bad guys try to rape my wife or girlfriend, I want to carry my gun so I can kill . them.
Gazda, on the other hand, probably shouldn t be a gupatagonia flannel shirt reviewsn proponent. He is a refugee from gun wary New York who grew up in a household of women, which included his mother, grandmother, aunt and no firearms.
Yet, like many transplanted Northerners, he journeyed south partly topatagonia w's better sweater jacket2 avoid what he considers overbearing government edicts. Gazda lives in an edge of suburbia home with a sign at the end of the driveway that warns of vicious dogs. It refers to two golden retrievers who greet visitors with slobbering affection.
In his backyard, he has a playground set built out patagonia guide jacket-x case studyof scrap wood. It is here he also likes to practice shooting his guns. He takes out his Smith Wesson and fires off a round. The sound crackles through the woods. The pistol is large, but, because of its high tech composite frame, surprisingly light.
I see it as a tool granted me by the Constitution, plain and simple, says Gazda. And [the government s] always going to be trying to take that tool away from me.
Gazda bought his first gun five years ago when he got his concealed carry permit but admits buying several more when Barack Obama was elected president, out of concern that the administration would try to limit gun rights.
He points out that the general decline in the violent crime rate doesn t mean the country isn t dangerous. One day when he left tpatagonia guide pants 501he gun behind, he was accosted, he says, by a convenience store owner who refused to let his two children use the bathroom. I felt threatened, and since then I always take it with me on trips with the family, he says.
Fear for personal safety is a major reason many people want to be able to own and carry a gun. Some see themselves as a sort of self appointed family constable.
