Stronger measures concern local gun rights advocates
By
Brian Lee
Telegram & Gazette Staff
Posted Mar 11, 2018 at 7:49 PM
Updated Mar 11, 2018 at 7:49 PM
Gun rights advocates in the area say they’re concerned about the
current conversation on gun control in the wake of the shooting massacre
in Parkland, Florida, last month.
Jamey Manning, president of the Southboro Rod & Gun Club, said that as much as he’s a devout gun owner, he has no problem with preventing people from possessing firearms if they shouldn’t have them.
But Mr. Manning, who noted he was not speaking on behalf of his club, said he disagrees with what appeared to be gun control advocates’ ultimate resolve.
“Anti-gun people’s goal is to do what Australia did, which is to essentially confiscate firearms,” Mr. Manning said.
Additional gun control measures are being considered across the country on the heels of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting on Feb. 14 that resulted in 17 deaths, and a mass shooting on the Las Vegas Strip last October that left 58 dead.
In Massachusetts, leadership at local gun clubs and the head of Gun Owners’ Action League say the state already has enough gun laws. They just haven’t been enforced.
Massachusetts is considered to have among the toughest gun laws in the U.S. Unlawful possession of a firearm outside the home carries a minimum 18-month sentence.
Earlier last week, GOAL blasted Gov. Charlie Baker and legislators after the governor announced Massachusetts would join “States for Gun Safety,” a coalition with New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Connecticut that will share information on people who have been disqualified from owning a gun. The coalition said it will also track and intercept illegal guns.
GOAL said joining the coalition represented “an admission of guilt” by state government for not stopping criminal gun trafficking and not enforcing current laws.
In an interview, Jim Wallace, executive director of GOAL, which is
headquartered in Northboro, said Massachusetts’ package of gun laws are
convoluted and ineffective, and he suggested that it would take courage
from lawmakers to admit it and revamp them.
But even if they did, he said there are no guarantees the courts and prosecutors would enforce them.
“It’s the first thing DAs will plea-bargain away, because they don’t want to muck through them to figure out what’s what,” Mr. Wallace said.
Worcester District Attorney Joseph D. Early Jr. said county prosecutors aren’t in the practice of knocking down gun charges.
He said his office doesn’t maintain conviction rates specific to gun charges, but on all gun charges, the office asks the court to hold a defendant without bail before trial in cases that fit the dangerousness statute concerning a felony charge that deal with the use of force or threat of force against another person.
A judge who finds the defendant to be a danger to the community can order him or her held up to 120 days. If the judge doesn’t order the defendant held, Mr. Early said prosecutors would then ask for bail.
Mr. Early said instances of reducing gun charges are rare for his office. He gave the example of a truck driver from another state who has a valid LTC but was unaware of Massachusetts law when he entered Worcester County with the gun in his truck. The DAs office might not prosecute if the driver doesn’t have a record.
The DA went on to assert that Massachusetts gun laws aren’t that
complicated, although he acknowledged there are some complications about
what a person can and cannot legally own.
Meanwhile, Mr. Wallace said GOAL has been asking for decades for conviction rates on mandatory minimum sentences for anyone found to be illegally carrying a firearm.
To the polarizing discussion of gun control, Mr. Wallace said, “It’s pretty simple. Every time we face one of these tragedies, people are looking for answers. Unfortunately, they always try to go for the easiest thing, because dealing with the human element is extraordinarily difficult, and nobody wants to do the hard work that needs to be done - whether you’re talking about criminal issues or mental health issues.”
Mr. Wallace discussed the need to view accidental shooting deaths, homicides and murders with guns, and suicides and severe mental health situations involving guns separately. They require three completely different approaches for a resolution, he said.
He noted that GOAL opposes two “extreme risk protection order” bills in Massachusetts that would allow a judge to order the temporary removal of guns from someone ruled a danger to themselves or others. Mr. Wallace said the bills would not prevent people deemed dangerous from causing harm by other means.
“All the bill does is take their legal guns away and set them free,” Mr. Wallace said. “That is completely unacceptable because we’re setting these potential monsters loose, and we think because they don’t have a legal gun, they’re still not a threat to our children.”
Mr. Wallace cited Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, who “never touched a gun” but killed 168 people in a 1995 attack. He said the recent Florida massacre was a “direct result of a systemic failure of government at every level. From the local level to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, they all failed to do their job to stop a person repeatedly identified as a public threat.”
Dale Hevy, president of the North Brookfield Sportsman’s Club, said
he knows of many people who are also concerned about the national
conversation on gun control.
Mr. Hevy said he is not a gun rights advocate, nor a flag bearer for GOAL or the National Rifle Association.
But Mr. Hevy said there’s “a lot of truth” to Mr. Wallace’s remarks.
He said Massachusetts was “notorious” for letting criminals off the hook.
“They catch somebody with a gun crime and if it’s got drugs involved, they let them go on the gun crimes. They basically cut the charges down.”
Mr. Hevy said he doesn’t think anyone would be opposed to reasonable solutions, but at the same time, he questioned if lawmakers would ultimately be able to enforce gun control proposals aimed at those with mental health challenges.
“A criminal is going to lie to you and say no, I don’t have any mental health problems,” he said.
Mr. Hevy also criticized lawmakers for considering what he said were feel-good measures.
“I keep hearing we have to do something,” he said. “Why do something if it’s wrong?”
Mr. Hevy mentioned a 20-year-old Oregon man’s recent lawsuit against Walmart and Dick’s Sporting Goods alleging age discrimination for refusing to sell him a rifle after the retailers’ imposed new policies to not sell guns to buyers younger than 21.
“That’s definitely a violation of somebody’s constitutional rights,” Mr. Hevy said.
Mr. Manning of the Southboro club said it is always disappointing, but he has grown accustomed to gun control arguments shortly after mass shooting events.
“Within minutes or an hour of an event like that, there’s an immediate call for gun control, without taking a more measured approach and finding out what the circumstances are,” he said.
Although gun rights advocates often get “vilified,” Mr. Manning called people with LTCs or FID cards among the most law-abiding people in the country.
He asserted that scrutiny of people’s right to bear arms meant other
portions of the Bill of Rights could be targeted, including free speech.
“Most people say the First Amendment doesn’t kill anybody,” Mr. Manning said. “But some people’s speech can inspire people to go kill people or cause harm.”
Advocates in the city had little to say when asked about the topic.
A person who answered the phone at the Gun Parlor, a Worcester retail store with an indoor shooting range, said the business had no comment because the media “can twist things” on gun control.
A person who answered the phone at Pullman Arms of Worcester said it had no comment about the subject.
A representative of Massachusetts Gun Rights, a volunteer organization in Worcester, replied with a text message asking if anyone was doing a story “on how four Broward County sheriff’s deputies stood outside and waited for another police force to arrive while children were shot to death?”
Jamey Manning, president of the Southboro Rod & Gun Club, said that as much as he’s a devout gun owner, he has no problem with preventing people from possessing firearms if they shouldn’t have them.
But Mr. Manning, who noted he was not speaking on behalf of his club, said he disagrees with what appeared to be gun control advocates’ ultimate resolve.
“Anti-gun people’s goal is to do what Australia did, which is to essentially confiscate firearms,” Mr. Manning said.
Additional gun control measures are being considered across the country on the heels of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting on Feb. 14 that resulted in 17 deaths, and a mass shooting on the Las Vegas Strip last October that left 58 dead.
In Massachusetts, leadership at local gun clubs and the head of Gun Owners’ Action League say the state already has enough gun laws. They just haven’t been enforced.
Massachusetts is considered to have among the toughest gun laws in the U.S. Unlawful possession of a firearm outside the home carries a minimum 18-month sentence.
Earlier last week, GOAL blasted Gov. Charlie Baker and legislators after the governor announced Massachusetts would join “States for Gun Safety,” a coalition with New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Connecticut that will share information on people who have been disqualified from owning a gun. The coalition said it will also track and intercept illegal guns.
GOAL said joining the coalition represented “an admission of guilt” by state government for not stopping criminal gun trafficking and not enforcing current laws.
But even if they did, he said there are no guarantees the courts and prosecutors would enforce them.
“It’s the first thing DAs will plea-bargain away, because they don’t want to muck through them to figure out what’s what,” Mr. Wallace said.
Worcester District Attorney Joseph D. Early Jr. said county prosecutors aren’t in the practice of knocking down gun charges.
He said his office doesn’t maintain conviction rates specific to gun charges, but on all gun charges, the office asks the court to hold a defendant without bail before trial in cases that fit the dangerousness statute concerning a felony charge that deal with the use of force or threat of force against another person.
A judge who finds the defendant to be a danger to the community can order him or her held up to 120 days. If the judge doesn’t order the defendant held, Mr. Early said prosecutors would then ask for bail.
Mr. Early said instances of reducing gun charges are rare for his office. He gave the example of a truck driver from another state who has a valid LTC but was unaware of Massachusetts law when he entered Worcester County with the gun in his truck. The DAs office might not prosecute if the driver doesn’t have a record.
Meanwhile, Mr. Wallace said GOAL has been asking for decades for conviction rates on mandatory minimum sentences for anyone found to be illegally carrying a firearm.
To the polarizing discussion of gun control, Mr. Wallace said, “It’s pretty simple. Every time we face one of these tragedies, people are looking for answers. Unfortunately, they always try to go for the easiest thing, because dealing with the human element is extraordinarily difficult, and nobody wants to do the hard work that needs to be done - whether you’re talking about criminal issues or mental health issues.”
Mr. Wallace discussed the need to view accidental shooting deaths, homicides and murders with guns, and suicides and severe mental health situations involving guns separately. They require three completely different approaches for a resolution, he said.
He noted that GOAL opposes two “extreme risk protection order” bills in Massachusetts that would allow a judge to order the temporary removal of guns from someone ruled a danger to themselves or others. Mr. Wallace said the bills would not prevent people deemed dangerous from causing harm by other means.
“All the bill does is take their legal guns away and set them free,” Mr. Wallace said. “That is completely unacceptable because we’re setting these potential monsters loose, and we think because they don’t have a legal gun, they’re still not a threat to our children.”
Mr. Wallace cited Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, who “never touched a gun” but killed 168 people in a 1995 attack. He said the recent Florida massacre was a “direct result of a systemic failure of government at every level. From the local level to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, they all failed to do their job to stop a person repeatedly identified as a public threat.”
Mr. Hevy said he is not a gun rights advocate, nor a flag bearer for GOAL or the National Rifle Association.
But Mr. Hevy said there’s “a lot of truth” to Mr. Wallace’s remarks.
He said Massachusetts was “notorious” for letting criminals off the hook.
“They catch somebody with a gun crime and if it’s got drugs involved, they let them go on the gun crimes. They basically cut the charges down.”
Mr. Hevy said he doesn’t think anyone would be opposed to reasonable solutions, but at the same time, he questioned if lawmakers would ultimately be able to enforce gun control proposals aimed at those with mental health challenges.
“A criminal is going to lie to you and say no, I don’t have any mental health problems,” he said.
“I keep hearing we have to do something,” he said. “Why do something if it’s wrong?”
Mr. Hevy mentioned a 20-year-old Oregon man’s recent lawsuit against Walmart and Dick’s Sporting Goods alleging age discrimination for refusing to sell him a rifle after the retailers’ imposed new policies to not sell guns to buyers younger than 21.
“That’s definitely a violation of somebody’s constitutional rights,” Mr. Hevy said.
Mr. Manning of the Southboro club said it is always disappointing, but he has grown accustomed to gun control arguments shortly after mass shooting events.
“Within minutes or an hour of an event like that, there’s an immediate call for gun control, without taking a more measured approach and finding out what the circumstances are,” he said.
Although gun rights advocates often get “vilified,” Mr. Manning called people with LTCs or FID cards among the most law-abiding people in the country.
“Most people say the First Amendment doesn’t kill anybody,” Mr. Manning said. “But some people’s speech can inspire people to go kill people or cause harm.”
Advocates in the city had little to say when asked about the topic.
A person who answered the phone at the Gun Parlor, a Worcester retail store with an indoor shooting range, said the business had no comment because the media “can twist things” on gun control.
A person who answered the phone at Pullman Arms of Worcester said it had no comment about the subject.
A representative of Massachusetts Gun Rights, a volunteer organization in Worcester, replied with a text message asking if anyone was doing a story “on how four Broward County sheriff’s deputies stood outside and waited for another police force to arrive while children were shot to death?”
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