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Guns in Arizona: Concerns over safety, rights shape gunslinger attitude by Dan Nowicki and Dennis Wagner - Jul. 11, 2011 12:00 AM The Arizona Republic Guns and the debate over whether the weapons need regulation has long been a mainstay of the political conversation in Arizona, where firearms violence spawned a counterculture long before statehood. In the Old West, some of the wildest and woolliest Arizona towns wound up with local gun-control ordinances. The argument over guns came up again as the state's founding fathers drafted the Arizona Constitution. And in the aftermath of President John F. Kennedy's assassination on Nov. 22, 1963, Arizona's political leadership mobilized in opposition to calls for more firearm restrictions. A gun-friendly political climate for decades has both reflected and supported Arizona's firearm lifestyle that started in the untamed territorial days and remains an element of the state's culture, economy and image. Pioneer towns such as Phoenix and Tombstone were founded by tough men who always carried two guns and a knife, said Bob Boze Bell, executive editor of Cave Creek-based True West Magazine. At one point, Bell said, Tombstone had 10,000 such residents and 66 bars, yet only 14 homicides over several years. Still, as women and children moved in, and as municipal governments took root, local anti-gun ordinances were adopted. Even in Tombstone, Arizona's legendary "town too tough to die." The most famous gunfight in the state's history was, partly, a dispute over guns. An attempt by Wyatt Earp, his brothers and their ally Doc Holliday to disarm a group of cowboys led to the deadly 1881 shootout near the O.K. Corral, a confrontation immortalized in Hollywood Westerns. "The laws are looser now than they were in the Old West," said Bell, a writer and illustrator whose books include "Bad Men: Outlaws and Gunfighters of the Wild West" and three volumes of his "Classic Gunfights" series. "You could not carry a gun in Tombstone." Of laws and limits Gun-control advocates will sometimes argue that Arizona's Wild West days are long over and that a different attitude toward guns is overdue. That call for increased regulation of firearms in the state actually is more than 100 years old. During the pre-statehood 1910 constitutional convention, Arizona's founders included a special protection for individual gun rights in the state constitution that went beyond the language of even the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. "The right of the individual citizen to bear arms in defense of himself or the state shall not be impaired," the draft constitution said. It was not without controversy, minutes of the proceedings show. A motion to scratch the provision was made on the grounds that "we are no longer a frontier country" and guns, in addition to being dangerous, weren't needed anymore. The motion was watered down to give the Legislature the power to regulate the carrying of weapons "to prevent crime" but was narrowly rejected on a 23-22 vote. Decades later, Arizona would allow legally carried concealed weapons, a reform that has expanded in one form or another to nearly every state, and for the past 20 years generally has been at the forefront of expanding gun rights on the state level. Alan Korwin, the author of the definitive guide to Arizona gun statutes and operator of the website www.gunlaws.com, said the gun-control ordinances adopted by Tombstone and some other Arizona towns were tossed as Second Amendment violations after Arizona became a state in 1912. But over the past half-century, federal gun restrictions ballooned out of control, Korwin said. In his book, he says U.S. gun laws now contain 83,000 words, with more than half of those adopted after 1970. Strong feelings of tradition For decades, the gun-control action was centered in Washington, D.C. The Arizona Legislature's emphasis on gun bills is a relatively recent phenomenon. Several longtime Arizona elected officials on both sides of the debate told The Arizona Republic that they don't recall state lawmakers spending much, if any, time on gun legislation in the 1960s or 1970s. However, Arizona political leadership's support of gun rights and antagonism toward federal gun control date back at least to the dawn of the modern era of firearm regulation. Long-serving U.S. Sen. Carl Hayden, D-Ariz., was a former territorial Maricopa County sheriff and an expert marksman who kept historic guns in his Senate office. A little more than two months after JFK's death, Hayden made headlines by holding up a .38 revolver at a Senate Commerce Committee meeting on legislation to ban the mail-order sales of guns. Hayden, who was born in 1877 and was then 86, found the pistol on a witness table along with other confiscated firearms. "Who shall I shoot?" Hayden mischievously asked, according to an account that appeared in the Jan. 31, 1964, edition of the Washington Post. Hayden and a contingent of Arizonans appeared at the meeting to oppose the gun-control measure, some on grounds that an armed citizenry was a necessary safeguard against a lawless government or an invading army. Others warned that the measure would hurt ranchers and farmers who lived in rural areas and relied on the mail to buy guns. Arizona Gov. Paul Fannin, a Republican who would win election to the U.S. Senate later that year, turned in a statement that implored Congress "not to be carried away by the hysteria of our president's assassination." Lee Harvey Oswald had purchased the Italian-made, Carcano rifle he used to kill Kennedy through the mail, but Fannin suggested that a better strategy would be to crack down on the importation of "worthless, cheap foreign weapons." "Coming from the West, there is no doubt that Western feelings are strongly imbedded in the American tradition of the right to keep and bear arms," U.S. Rep. George Senner, D-Ariz., told the committee in a statement. Mail-order gun sales eventually were outlawed under the Gun Control Act of 1968, landmark legislation signed by President Lyndon Johnson after the subsequent assassinations of civil-rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, D-N.Y. The law also made it illegal to sell guns to anyone indicted or convicted of crimes punishable by more than one year in prison, people who have been determined to be mentally ill or dishonorably discharged from the military, as well as drug addicts and illegal immigrants. Hayden and Fannin, Arizona's two senators at the time, voted against it. "Since '68, it's been one fight after another," said Bob Corbin, a former Arizona attorney general who served as National Rifle Association president in the early 1990s. Battle over the Brady Bill The 1968 bill was the first major gun legislation since the 1930s, when gangland warfare prompted Congress to regulate fully automatic machine guns and sawed-off shotguns. Decades later, Congress banned ownership of machine guns that were not registered as of May 19, 1986. Federal gun-control momentum returned to Capitol Hill in the 1990s, and again Arizonans played key roles in the legislative drama. President Bill Clinton signed the Brady Bill, more formally known as the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, in 1993. It was named for Jim Brady, the White House press secretary wounded in gunman John Hinckley Jr.'s attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan outside a Washington, D.C., hotel in 1981. The following year, lawmakers included a 10-year ban, which has since lapsed, on certain semiautomatic assault weapons in an anti-crime bill. U.S. Sen. Dennis DeConcini, D-Ariz., had led the way on the assault-weapon ban, introducing the legislation several years in a row. Back home, DeConcini was targeted by an unsuccessful recall campaign in 1989 and in 1993 was marked for defeat by Corbin and the NRA. He ultimately decided not to seek re-election in 1994. Pro-gun activists and lobbyists decried the Brady Bill and the assault-weapon ban as unconstitutional. In 1994, an Arizona sheriff challenged the constitutionality of the Brady Bill's provision that required state and local law-enforcement officials to conduct five-day criminal-background checks on gun buyers. U.S. District Judge John Roll, who was slain in the Jan. 8 mass shooting near Tucson that also wounded U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., agreed with Graham County Sheriff Richard Mack that the requirement was a federal violation of states' rights under the 10th Amendment. The Brady Bill case eventually got to the U.S. Supreme Court, which also sided with Mack on the point. The sheriff became a cult hero to gun-rights enthusiasts, writing a book titled "From My Cold Dead Fingers: Why America Needs Guns." Mack lamented that no armed citizen was able to shoot the gunman once he opened fire on Giffords and Roll and others attending the congresswoman's constituent event outside a grocery store. "I wish I'd been there to protect him," Mack said of Roll. Bold steps and controversy The year 1994 also marked Arizona's passage of its original law allowing concealed weapons to be carried by state-permitted gun owners. The decade saw the start of the Legislature's more aggressive defense of gun rights and the national controversy it inevitably brings. In 2000, Arizona House Speaker Jeff Groscost, R-Mesa, sparked a negative reaction by inviting actor Charlton Heston, then the NRA president, to deliver the invocation at the opening of the Legislature. Heston would speak even as then-Gov. Jane Dee Hull and some lawmakers were hoping to pass a bill that would upgrade the celebratory firing of guns in the air, a dangerous New Year's Eve practice in Arizona, to a felony. Gun-control advocates called Heston's appearance a slap in the face, even though Heston endorsed "Shannon's Law," named for a 14-year-old Phoenix girl who was killed by a falling bullet. "I think that firing a gun in the air is about as stupid an undertaking as I can imagine," Heston told reporters at the Arizona House of Representatives. "Certainly no responsible gun owner would ever do that."
Guns in Arizona: A passion for firearms Collectors search out what's rare, unusual by Richard Ruelas - Jul. 11, 2011 12:00 AM The Arizona Republic Bill Johnson sees them at every gun show. They are the collectors who spot that Colt 1851 Navy Revolver in excellent shape, maybe with a serial number lower than the one they already own. "They get a glazed look in their eye," said Johnson, who runs shows in Arizona and Nevada. "They just start drooling from them." Johnson works in the marketplace of guns that are half-curios and half-weapons. Truth be told, a good number of the guns that change hands at his Western Collectibles and Firearms Shows might never be fired. slideshow Arizona gun culture portraits Those are what he calls "wall hangers." "Guys want them for barbecue-restaurant decorations," he said. "They're never going to shoot them." Those who collect guns are fueled by the same passion and fervor as those who collect cars, baseball cards or nearly anything else. Except that no one calls for tighter regulations on transactions at those collectors' events. They do on this one, even giving it a name: the gun-show loophole. Some lawmakers want to make private transactions subject to the same background checks and registry requirements as dealer sales. But Johnson doesn't believe he is adding to criminals' arsenals with his show. He doesn't think many smugglers or drug runners are using an old Hammer shotgun, popularized by vintage cowboy movies. If they did, they might be easier to spot. "You pick one up in your hand, and you just start talking like John Wayne," he said. Just before the doors opened at Tim's Toyota Center in Prescott Valley, Johnson got on a microphone and addressed the vendors. "We want all you vendors to double-check your weapons and make sure they are unarmed," he said. "We don't want any discharges at the show." It was a precaution but not a real worry. Most of these guns are never loaded. Ed Boyle, a rancher from Santa Susana, Calif., said some of the Old West guns he prizes use ammunition that has been discontinued. He searches for guns with character. "I have pictures of my great-grandfolks, and I look at the weapons they had," he said. He still lives on the land his family has ranched for 130 years and says there is something that feels right about using a Bird's Head Colt or Schofield rifle. "I like to use what (my great-grandparents) were using," he said. "For no good reason." Don Rossko of Mesa was walking around the show with two rare rifles. One was a 1903 Mannlicher Schoenauer. The other was a 1908 Mauser. He had cardboard price tags dangling from both, looking to sell them. The Mauser, he said, was the real prize. "When I saw this," he said of the time he spotted the Mauser at another gun show, "I said, 'My gosh, all the numbers match.' " He meant the serial numbers on the parts. Some older weapons, like older cars, will see major parts swapped out. But this one was intact. A potential customer walked up to Rossko and asked him how much. Rossko didn't answer right away, instead ticking off the attributes of the rifle. The gun was made in Germany for the Brazilian army, he said, pointing out an emblem in the stock and the Brazilian crest etched on the receiver. He even showed off a flaw. "Notice the butt plate doesn't fit as good as it should," he said. The customer said it looked like the wood underneath had been sanded. Rossko was looking for about $500 for it. The potential buyer walked away at that price, but Rossko figured he might circle back later in the show. Rossko would also speak with dealers, looking to trade for a Colt .45, his weapon of choice, both in collecting and shooting. "You say Colt .45, that's the best in handguns," he said. "Just like when you say Mauser, that's the best in rifles." He emphasized that last part as if he were pitching to any passing customers. John Fitzen, a knifesmith from Razors Edge in Salt Lake City, was selling the opposite of a vintage Old West weapon. He displayed ultra-modern and tricked-out guns. One was decorated with chrome skulls and had "Vaya con Dios," Spanish for "Go with God," stenciled on one side. Two words were etched on the edge of the barrel, legible to someone who might be looking down into it. The message tells the person he is in a fix, but a more profane word was used. "We do fun things," he said. He had a display of AR-15 semiautomatic assault rifles in camouflage and black. A shotgun is a better weapon for home protection, he said, but the AR-15 is simply a hoot to shoot. "It's the cool factor that sells it," he said. "I can have a Volkswagen. That'll do me. Or I can have the Cadillac." The collectors seemed overwhelmingly male. Linda Betz, 64, of Dewey, proffered the theory that there were fewer women into guns and those who were bought them for sport or self-defense. Collecting is way too expensive, said Betz, who was shopping for ammunition, holsters and other accessories. She didn't see the point of owning a gun she wouldn't shoot. "If I'm getting a gun, I'm not getting it to look at and say, 'Ooh, isn't that pretty?' " she said. Johnson, a former pro wrestler known as Mr. Pain before he started putting on gun shows, feels the same way. His home in Oklahoma was burglarized years ago, he said, and his collection of guns was taken, including family heirlooms. Johnson still buys and sells but hasn't rebuilt a collection. "Everything has a value," he said, "and don't get too attached." For home protection, Johnson said he would not try to impress a potential intruder with antiques. "I'm going to use a modern .45 automatic," he said, "and blow a great big hole in you."
Guns in Arizona: Gun-control support often politically risky by Dan Nowicki - Jul. 9, 2011 11:15 PM The Arizona Republic Historically, Arizona politicians who take the lead on gun-control issues risk political blowback from their constituents. After U.S. Sen. Dennis DeConcini, D-Ariz., emerged as a national champion for the assault-weapons ban, he was targeted by a recall campaign in 1989. U.S. Sen. John McCain's work with U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, then a Democrat, on an unsuccessful bill to regulate gun shows was cited as a motivating factor in a 2001 recall effort against the Arizona Republican. Neither recall proved successful. "Having been in politics in Arizona, I realize there's a strong feeling of gun ownership and also the strong fear in our state of over-government control of our lives," said DeConcini, who served three terms in the Senate from 1977 to 1995. DeConcini, a native Arizonan, said he grew up comfortable around guns. But his outlook toward semiautomatic assault weapons began to change as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. After hearings on a January 1989 schoolyard shooting in Stockton, Calif., in which a gunman used an AK-47 rifle to kill five students and wound 29 other children and one teacher, DeConcini said he became "a convert to a belief that it was imperative that we attempt to ban these very dangerous assault weapons." DeConcini credits Judiciary Committee staff aide Dennis Burke, now the U.S. attorney for Arizona, for much of the work in developing the ban, which became law during DeConcini's final year in the Senate but expired after 10 years. U.S. Rep. Ed Pastor, D-Ariz., voted for the assault-weapons ban despite possible political ramifications back home. He said the gun-control vote likely cost the jobs of some colleagues, most notably House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jack Brooks, D-Texas, a congressional giant whose career dated to the early 1950s and who rode in the motorcade in which President John F. Kennedy was killed. In Arizona, a vote for the assault-weapons ban by freshman U.S. Rep. Karan English, D-Ariz., contributed to her 1994 loss to GOP challenger J.D. Hayworth. "People in Washington felt that, coming from Arizona, I was going to catch a lot of heat, which I did," said Pastor, now the senior member of Arizona's U.S. House delegation. "But I also found out that there were people who were very reasonable. They said, 'I don't need an assault weapon to go hunting.' I supported the ban on assault weapons, and it was a trying time, but I was able to overcome it." Today, there is no momentum for gun control on Capitol Hill, McCain said, partly because concern over the economy "has taken all the oxygen out of the room on every other issue." DeConcini, who now is on the Arizona Board of Regents, said he is disappointed but not surprised that Congress appears to have no appetite to take up what he considers reasonable gun regulations even after the Jan. 8 mass shooting near Tucson that wounded U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and killed U.S. District Judge John Roll and five others. DeConcini said he expects the conservative Legislature will continue to advance its pro gun-rights agenda as a way to demonstrate defiance of the federal government. "I hate to see Arizona get this bad rap," DeConcini said. "I travel a lot around the country, and people ask me about Arizona. Now, people will say, 'Oh, you're from Arizona. I'm sorry.' This is not exaggeration. This is what happens." McCain said he doubts that most Americans will view the Giffords shooting as typical of Arizona. More likely, he said, they will realize it was the act of a mentally deranged individual who could have struck anywhere. He compared it to John Hinckley's attempted assassination of then-President Ronald Reagan in 1981. "I don't think they blamed Mr. Hinckley's shooting of the president as a reflection on Washington, D.C.," McCain said.
Guns in Arizona: Legislator's gun highlights debate by Richard Ruelas - Jul. 10, 2011 12:00 AM The Arizona Republic State Sen. Lori Klein did not intend to make a political statement when she carried a loaded weapon into the state Capitol two days after the mass shooting outside Tucson. The raspberry-pink handgun was simply in her purse, alongside her lipstick and keys. But when security tried to stop the Anthem Republican from carrying the .380 Ruger into the legislative chambers, which were filled with dignitaries for the governor's annual address, her action became public. And, as is the case with much involving firearms, it also became political. In a state whose residents are either questioning or defending its non-restrictive gun laws, Klein's action was like a straight shot through the varying attitudes about firearms. Arizona is a state of hunters and competitive shooters, Old West aficionados and those who want the latest technology in weapons. There are those who carry in self-defense and those who don't own a gun at all. Those attitudes toward weapons are reflected in the members of the Arizona Legislature, by definition a body representative of the various political leanings of the state. Klein, the central character in the gun incident, stood for those who defend the right to carry wherever they see fit. Who don't want their constitutional rights infringed in any way, especially at the workplace. And who see themselves as their own best line of defense against criminals. Klein, a freshman lawmaker, said she has heard and read comments from people who don't understand why she feels the need to constantly walk around armed, even on the secured floor of the legislative chamber. "They kind of look like everybody who does carry is some kind of hick or hillbilly or cowboy type," Klein said, "and they don't identify." Some lawmakers decried her action, reflecting the attitudes of those who question the need for a gun in a policed metropolitan area. Those who think more guns invite more violence. Who think that government has a definite place in regulating the time and place in which weapons are allowed. Sen. Robert Meza, a Democrat from Phoenix, was with Klein as she entered the House of Representatives that Jan 10. Meza said he thought it was "weird" that Klein was allowed to bring her gun onto the floor. "And I'm carrying a machine gun, do you mind?" he thought. The incident showed that lawmakers were not just divided on legislative policies involving guns. They were also deeply divided over the presence of guns in their own world, the society that was going to be gaveled into session that day at 1700 W. Washington Ave. "Oh, it's so cute," Klein said, as she unzipped the loaded Ruger from its carrying case to show a reporter and photographer. She was sitting on a leather couch in a lounge, just outside the Senate chamber. She showed off the laser sighting by pointing the red beam at the reporter's chest. The gun has no safety, she said, but there was no need to worry. "I just didn't have my hand on the trigger," she said. Klein said she started carrying a handgun in 2000, after someone rattled the door at her Moon Valley house. "That just scared the hell out of me," she said. She had grown up around guns in Spokane, Wash. She fired a BB gun at age 6 and went on childhood hunting trips with her father. But after she moved to larger cities, she never felt a need to carry a gun. Until that night in Phoenix. Her husband at the time was traveling and she was home with the kids. They were asleep. She was watching television, about 6 feet from the door. She heard it rattle. She called police, and they arrived about 10 minutes later, she said. "That's a terminal amount of time," she said. "Had the perpetrators gotten in, I had no gun, I had nothing. There was nothing I could do to protect my children." She went to Shooter's World, a gun store, on Ladies Night and bought a .40 caliber revolver. "I slept with it," she said. The smaller and more concealable gun she carried into the Statehouse was a Christmas gift. She carries it in her purse. She has other guns, which she declined to detail. Klein said she's had informal training sessions on each of her guns and was taught gun safety by her father. Klein carried the gun into the Senate on her first day as a matter of routine, but as she has continued her duties, she began to carry it because she felt she needed it. Someone wanting to do her harm could easily slip past what she considers the weak security measures in place. "It's like an insurance policy," she said of her handguns. "Shame on me if something were to ever happen and I couldn't defend myself or my children." It's a personal choice, she said, but one not understood or respected by everyone. She has some girlfriends who don't carry weapons and are generally afraid of guns, Klein said. And she doesn't try to convince them they are wrong. She doesn't think someone should carry a weapon unless they are comfortable and confident in doing so. "I don't like chocolate ice cream," she said. "Am I going to force you not to have any?" Klein, who has since divorced and moved to Anthem, where she won her first bid for public office, said she didn't know she was going to be part of the delegation of senators who would enter the House of Representatives that day. If she had time to plan, she might have left her purse and gun in her office. But Klein said she was told to accompany leadership minutes before the walk across the Capitol plaza. Her purse was with her, and inside was the tiny but powerful gun. Security was tight because, on Jan. 8, a gunman opened fire at a congressional constituent event held at a grocery store outside Tucson. Six people died, and 13 were wounded, including U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. When guards first told Klein that she couldn't take in a gun, Klein reminded them she was a state senator. "They said, 'You can't go in.' I said, 'Oh, yeah, I can. I have a right to carry,' " Klein said. Klein said she asked security to check with the Senate secretary. That person said to allow her inside. Meza, who was also part of the delegation from the Senate, said afterward he asked Klein about carrying a gun to work. She told him about the attempted break-in, but he still didn't understand. "Me, personally, I don't live in fear," Meza said. Meza grew up in Phoenix and would take trips up north with his family to hunt deer and elk. But he doesn't see a need for weapons in an urban area. "I personally don't believe people should be able to carry guns on the street," he said. Joe Kubacki, the sergeant at arms for the Senate, said Klein's scenario of an attacker making it into her office was far-fetched. "In the world of 'anything's possible,' I suppose it could happen," he said. "But I think it's highly unlikely." There are electronically locked doors and security on each floor. Capitol police and Arizona Department of Public Safety officers have a response time of about 30 seconds, Kubacki said. In his 16 years of working security in the Senate, he said there has not been a single incident where someone created enough of a danger that the person had to be forcibly removed from a lawmaker's office. Still, Klein's carrying of a handgun into the building does not bother him. "If that makes her feel more safe and that provides a level of comfort for her, I think that's a good thing," he said. Klein's gun incident became a punch line during floor debate about a bill that would allow weapons into government buildings. In arguing against it, Sen. Steve Gallardo, a Phoenix Democrat, said the legislation would let someone carry a weapon into the Senate gallery. "And if they started shooting, the only one who is able to protect us is Lori Klein," Gallardo recalled saying. Klein was not present, but hearing that she was being joked about, she came on to the floor within minutes. Gallardo told her what he had said. Klein said she told him, "I'm not protecting your sorry ass." She later told him she was joking and that she would protect him if trouble broke out. "Of course, he'd be under his desk," Klein said. Gallardo was also wrong about her being the only senator to carry a weapon in the chamber, she said. She's just the only one who's been public about it. Since her incident, she has had other senators tell her they also carry concealed. She wouldn't give names but said "you can imagine who they are."
Guns in Arizona: Concerns over safety, rights shape gunslinger attitude by Dan Nowicki and Dennis Wagner - Jul. 11, 2011 12:00 AM The Arizona Republic Guns and the debate over whether the weapons need regulation has long been a mainstay of the political conversation in Arizona, where firearms violence spawned a counterculture long before statehood. In the Old West, some of the wildest and woolliest Arizona towns wound up with local gun-control ordinances. The argument over guns came up again as the state's founding fathers drafted the Arizona Constitution. And in the aftermath of President John F. Kennedy's assassination on Nov. 22, 1963, Arizona's political leadership mobilized in opposition to calls for more firearm restrictions. A gun-friendly political climate for decades has both reflected and supported Arizona's firearm lifestyle that started in the untamed territorial days and remains an element of the state's culture, economy and image. Pioneer towns such as Phoenix and Tombstone were founded by tough men who always carried two guns and a knife, said Bob Boze Bell, executive editor of Cave Creek-based True West Magazine. At one point, Bell said, Tombstone had 10,000 such residents and 66 bars, yet only 14 homicides over several years. Still, as women and children moved in, and as municipal governments took root, local anti-gun ordinances were adopted. Even in Tombstone, Arizona's legendary "town too tough to die." The most famous gunfight in the state's history was, partly, a dispute over guns. An attempt by Wyatt Earp, his brothers and their ally Doc Holliday to disarm a group of cowboys led to the deadly 1881 shootout near the O.K. Corral, a confrontation immortalized in Hollywood Westerns. "The laws are looser now than they were in the Old West," said Bell, a writer and illustrator whose books include "Bad Men: Outlaws and Gunfighters of the Wild West" and three volumes of his "Classic Gunfights" series. "You could not carry a gun in Tombstone." Of laws and limits Gun-control advocates will sometimes argue that Arizona's Wild West days are long over and that a different attitude toward guns is overdue. That call for increased regulation of firearms in the state actually is more than 100 years old. During the pre-statehood 1910 constitutional convention, Arizona's founders included a special protection for individual gun rights in the state constitution that went beyond the language of even the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. "The right of the individual citizen to bear arms in defense of himself or the state shall not be impaired," the draft constitution said. It was not without controversy, minutes of the proceedings show. A motion to scratch the provision was made on the grounds that "we are no longer a frontier country" and guns, in addition to being dangerous, weren't needed anymore. The motion was watered down to give the Legislature the power to regulate the carrying of weapons "to prevent crime" but was narrowly rejected on a 23-22 vote. Decades later, Arizona would allow legally carried concealed weapons, a reform that has expanded in one form or another to nearly every state, and for the past 20 years generally has been at the forefront of expanding gun rights on the state level. Alan Korwin, the author of the definitive guide to Arizona gun statutes and operator of the website www.gunlaws.com, said the gun-control ordinances adopted by Tombstone and some other Arizona towns were tossed as Second Amendment violations after Arizona became a state in 1912. But over the past half-century, federal gun restrictions ballooned out of control, Korwin said. In his book, he says U.S. gun laws now contain 83,000 words, with more than half of those adopted after 1970. Strong feelings of tradition For decades, the gun-control action was centered in Washington, D.C. The Arizona Legislature's emphasis on gun bills is a relatively recent phenomenon. Several longtime Arizona elected officials on both sides of the debate told The Arizona Republic that they don't recall state lawmakers spending much, if any, time on gun legislation in the 1960s or 1970s. However, Arizona political leadership's support of gun rights and antagonism toward federal gun control date back at least to the dawn of the modern era of firearm regulation. Long-serving U.S. Sen. Carl Hayden, D-Ariz., was a former territorial Maricopa County sheriff and an expert marksman who kept historic guns in his Senate office. A little more than two months after JFK's death, Hayden made headlines by holding up a .38 revolver at a Senate Commerce Committee meeting on legislation to ban the mail-order sales of guns. Hayden, who was born in 1877 and was then 86, found the pistol on a witness table along with other confiscated firearms. "Who shall I shoot?" Hayden mischievously asked, according to an account that appeared in the Jan. 31, 1964, edition of the Washington Post. Hayden and a contingent of Arizonans appeared at the meeting to oppose the gun-control measure, some on grounds that an armed citizenry was a necessary safeguard against a lawless government or an invading army. Others warned that the measure would hurt ranchers and farmers who lived in rural areas and relied on the mail to buy guns. Arizona Gov. Paul Fannin, a Republican who would win election to the U.S. Senate later that year, turned in a statement that implored Congress "not to be carried away by the hysteria of our president's assassination." Lee Harvey Oswald had purchased the Italian-made, Carcano rifle he used to kill Kennedy through the mail, but Fannin suggested that a better strategy would be to crack down on the importation of "worthless, cheap foreign weapons." "Coming from the West, there is no doubt that Western feelings are strongly imbedded in the American tradition of the right to keep and bear arms," U.S. Rep. George Senner, D-Ariz., told the committee in a statement. Mail-order gun sales eventually were outlawed under the Gun Control Act of 1968, landmark legislation signed by President Lyndon Johnson after the subsequent assassinations of civil-rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, D-N.Y. The law also made it illegal to sell guns to anyone indicted or convicted of crimes punishable by more than one year in prison, people who have been determined to be mentally ill or dishonorably discharged from the military, as well as drug addicts and illegal immigrants. Hayden and Fannin, Arizona's two senators at the time, voted against it. "Since '68, it's been one fight after another," said Bob Corbin, a former Arizona attorney general who served as National Rifle Association president in the early 1990s. Battle over the Brady Bill The 1968 bill was the first major gun legislation since the 1930s, when gangland warfare prompted Congress to regulate fully automatic machine guns and sawed-off shotguns. Decades later, Congress banned ownership of machine guns that were not registered as of May 19, 1986. Federal gun-control momentum returned to Capitol Hill in the 1990s, and again Arizonans played key roles in the legislative drama. President Bill Clinton signed the Brady Bill, more formally known as the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, in 1993. It was named for Jim Brady, the White House press secretary wounded in gunman John Hinckley Jr.'s attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan outside a Washington, D.C., hotel in 1981. The following year, lawmakers included a 10-year ban, which has since lapsed, on certain semiautomatic assault weapons in an anti-crime bill. U.S. Sen. Dennis DeConcini, D-Ariz., had led the way on the assault-weapon ban, introducing the legislation several years in a row. Back home, DeConcini was targeted by an unsuccessful recall campaign in 1989 and in 1993 was marked for defeat by Corbin and the NRA. He ultimately decided not to seek re-election in 1994. Pro-gun activists and lobbyists decried the Brady Bill and the assault-weapon ban as unconstitutional. In 1994, an Arizona sheriff challenged the constitutionality of the Brady Bill's provision that required state and local law-enforcement officials to conduct five-day criminal-background checks on gun buyers. U.S. District Judge John Roll, who was slain in the Jan. 8 mass shooting near Tucson that also wounded U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., agreed with Graham County Sheriff Richard Mack that the requirement was a federal violation of states' rights under the 10th Amendment. The Brady Bill case eventually got to the U.S. Supreme Court, which also sided with Mack on the point. The sheriff became a cult hero to gun-rights enthusiasts, writing a book titled "From My Cold Dead Fingers: Why America Needs Guns." Mack lamented that no armed citizen was able to shoot the gunman once he opened fire on Giffords and Roll and others attending the congresswoman's constituent event outside a grocery store. "I wish I'd been there to protect him," Mack said of Roll. Bold steps and controversy The year 1994 also marked Arizona's passage of its original law allowing concealed weapons to be carried by state-permitted gun owners. The decade saw the start of the Legislature's more aggressive defense of gun rights and the national controversy it inevitably brings. In 2000, Arizona House Speaker Jeff Groscost, R-Mesa, sparked a negative reaction by inviting actor Charlton Heston, then the NRA president, to deliver the invocation at the opening of the Legislature. Heston would speak even as then-Gov. Jane Dee Hull and some lawmakers were hoping to pass a bill that would upgrade the celebratory firing of guns in the air, a dangerous New Year's Eve practice in Arizona, to a felony. Gun-control advocates called Heston's appearance a slap in the face, even though Heston endorsed "Shannon's Law," named for a 14-year-old Phoenix girl who was killed by a falling bullet. "I think that firing a gun in the air is about as stupid an undertaking as I can imagine," Heston told reporters at the Arizona House of Representatives. "Certainly no responsible gun owner would ever do that."
Guns in Arizona: Gun lobby has firm grip on state by Alia Beard Rau - Jul. 13, 2011 12:00 AM The Arizona Republic This year, the gun debate dominated the Arizona Legislature, overshadowing even illegal immigration. The session started just days after the shooting of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 18 others near Tucson. It ended with Gov. Jan Brewer vetoing two bills that would have made Arizona the most gun-friendly state in the nation. During the three months in between, the gun lobby worked tirelessly and wielded its considerable influence to try to decrease restrictions on Arizonans' right to buy, own, carry and use firearms. More than a dozen bills written by the gun lobbyists were introduced this session. The lobbyists were a constant presence at the Legislature. They carried with them the power of a political stance that conservative politicians in Arizona must support to remain electable, as well as the strength of thousands of members who made their opinions known via letters and e-mails. Three groups were behind most of the measures and carried the most influence behind the scenes at the Legislature: the Tucson-based non-profit Arizona Citizens Defense League, the Washington, D.C.-based National Rifle Association and Tucson lobbyist Todd Rathner, who in the past has represented the NRA and this session worked with Colt's Manufacturing Co. Although each had a separate agenda, they worked together often this session, united in their push for the Legislature to eliminate restrictions on gun possession and use in Arizona. They went into the session predicting success with the help of a newly elected Legislature dominated by pro-gun conservative Republicans and a governor with a strong history of supporting Second Amendment legislation. They came out of the session surprised and frustrated by some of the defeats. The two most controversial bills - to allow guns on college campuses and into public buildings - were vetoed. Brewer in her veto letters criticized the bills for being "poorly written." Several smaller bills became law, including making the Colt Single Action Army Revolver the state firearm and redefining the justifications for use of force in defense of a home or vehicle. "I think for gun owners, this was probably a 60/40 year," Rathner said. "In an environment where we had a terrible tragic mass shooting in Tucson, no anti-gun bills were passed. But, by the same token, we only passed a couple of good gun bills." The lobbyists said they have no plans to give up on getting more "good" gun bills that loosen restrictions passed. They vow to be back next year smarter and savvier. Who they are Although the three gun-lobby groups often work together in their push for fewer gun restrictions in Arizona, each tackles the job in different ways and has unique strengths. The Arizona Citizens Defense League has local voters behind it. Todd Rathner, who owns his own lobbying firm, works his personal connections. And the NRA has its national reputation. - The Arizona Citizens Defense League is a grass-roots group started with the intent to coordinate a statewide effort to expand the rights of gun owners. Group leaders work year-round developing legislation, meeting with lawmakers and advocating for and against measures. This year, the league was behind both Senate Bill 1467 to require colleges to allow guns on campus and SB 1201 to require public buildings to allow guns unless they have metal detectors and armed guards. "We started out with four guys six years ago, and we're just shy of 5,000 now," spokesman Charles Heller said, adding that members come from around the world, including a machine-gun dealer in England. "Thirty percent of Arizona legislators are members of our organization." Heller would not identify the lawmakers. The group hosts an annual meeting. Members are encouraged to vote for pro-gun candidates as well as influence legislators by sending letters and e-mails. - Rathner worked as a lobbyist at the Arizona Legislature for the NRA for several years. He still serves on that organization's board of directors, but last year, he started his own lobbying firm. This year, he represented Colt and the Arizona State Rifle and Pistol Association, among others. He is a familiar face around the Legislature, is passionate about gun rights and knows how the game of lawmaking is played in Arizona. He gets to know legislators well and can often be found whispering in someone's ear. During his decade at the Legislature, Rathner helped push for the law to eliminate the requirement for a concealed-carry permit as well as the one that required employers to allow employees to keep firearms in their vehicles in a business' parking lot. This year, he successfully finagled on behalf of Colt a last-minute revote to get the Army revolver named the official state gun. - Matt Dogali out of Virginia handles lobbying efforts for the NRA in Arizona as well as overseeing the national organization's lobbying in Idaho and Wyoming. At the start of the session, he said, the NRA's primary focus in Arizona was to simplify the laws surrounding the use of force in certain situations. That measure did become law. Dogali wasn't at the Legislature as often as the other lobbyists. His power is in his organization's name, its number of members and the postcards it sends to voters about candidate stances on gun issues. How they work During the months before the Legislature starts in January, the gun lobbyists individually meet with lawmakers and their own stakeholders and develop a strategy for the session. They decide which issues to focus on and write the bills they will ask sympathetic lawmakers to propose. "We pick out our most important priority and our prime bill, which SB 1201 was," Heller said, referring to the bill to allow guns in public buildings. "Then, we have our other bills. We are never going to tell you which is our prime bill and which isn't. We decide in advance what we're willing to give up to get our prime bill done." Once the session begins, lobbyists meet with lawmakers to make sure the politicians understand the bills and can be counted on to support them. "We'll also reach out to the governor's staff and say, 'This is the bill. Do you have any issues with it?' and try to alleviate any concerns that may be there," Rathner said. Lobbyists meet with House and Senate leadership to make sure their bills are assigned to favorable committees and move through the process. The gun lobbyists can easily pop into an influential lawmaker's office while less influential lobbyists must make an appointment. Sen. Ron Gould, R-Lake Havasu City, sponsored several gun bills this session. He said gun lobbyists don't have to buy their influence; they have the voting power of their members to use as leverage. "The National Rifle Association has clout just by the fact that they have a million members. (Lawmakers) are afraid of the NRA. They have the ability to get their message out," Gould said. "And the Citizens Defense League can probably generate as many e-mails in Arizona as the NRA can." The Citizens Defense League also is at the Capitol working with lawmakers nearly every day during the session, Gould said. Rathner said this session was unusual because of the number of freshman lawmakers, especially in the House. "Many were unproven, and it was hard to judge where exactly they would be on a bill," Rathner said. "We had to do our best to educate them and try to get them to vote our way. And politics is fluid, so you have legislators constantly re-evaluating their positions on things." The guns-on-campus bill was an example of lawmakers changing their positions. The bill originally would have allowed guns everywhere on campus, including in classrooms. It appeared to have the votes in the Senate, but it was watered down to allow guns only on campus rights-of-way to ensure it would pass in the House. During the final floor votes on a bill, the lobbyists can often be found in the hallways or lawmakers' lobby, ready to answer questions or push a lawmaker who may not be lining up to vote the way they want. That tactic saved the bill designating a state gun. The bill failed in the early hours of the last day of session, but Rathner was there. "I scrambled to get a couple of legislators to organize a reconsideration vote and, within 15 minutes, we had a reconsideration," he said. "There were a few legislators who had been committed yeses but because of things said on the floor voted no. I scrambled to ask them why they voted no and would they reconsider." The bill passed the second time. "To me, it's a three-dimensional chess game," Rathner said. "You're dealing with 91 people, and you've got 91 different personalities. You want to give as little as you have to give, and it's a challenge to figure out how to get the votes. That's why lobbying is an art, not a science." Outcomes and plans Arizona this year tied with Utah and Alaska as having the worst gun-safety laws in the nation, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Violence. All three states got zero points. Had Brewer not vetoed the measures allowing guns on campus and in public buildings, the state likely would have been alone at the top next year with negative points. Heller called Arizona's ranking this year a victory. "Hallelujah, we finally got a perfect score," he said. He said he doesn't consider this year's legislative defeats as failures. "We are perfectly willing to encounter a defeat and learn from it and learn who our friends are and aren't and what we need to change to make the bill go through," Heller said. "We're willing to be defeated if it moves us forward." Rathner said they learned from Brewer's vetoes, saying the groups will try to craft bills next session that are more specific. He said the lobbyists will work closely with Brewer's staff to develop something she can sign. Heller said he believes the vetoes of the two major gun bills this session, as well as a reluctance from some Republican lawmakers to support the measures in their original form, were less about the bills and more about concerns about the political ramifications of signing such measures only months after the shooting near Tucson. "After that terrible incident, they just couldn't provide themselves with any political cover to support what we were doing," he said. "But I really believe next year will be very different."
Guns in Arizona: Gun backers outspend foes by Ronald J. Hansen - Jul. 13, 2011 12:00 AM The Arizona Republic During his first run for Congress last year, Ben Quayle took in at least $19,000 in campaign funding from supporters of gun-rights organizations across the country. That was the most donated by such interests in any of Arizona's House races in 2010 and more than gun-control advocates spent in every House and Senate race in the country combined, according to campaign-finance data. The race reflected how gun-rights advocates continue to enjoy a lopsided fundraising advantage nationally over their ideological opponents. It also highlighted a strategy used by gun-rights supporters that directs the largest donations to preferred candidates who face tough races. Quayle, a Republican, was running in a crowded primary field for an open House seat. He won that race and captured the seat in November. In every House and Senate election nationwide since 1990, the gun industry and its backers have outspent gun-control advocates by wide margins, according to an Arizona Republic analysis of campaign-finance data compiled by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. In 2010, 66 percent of the gun-rights donations in House races and 88 percent in Senate campaigns went to Republicans. Gun-issue contributions also are lopsided in Arizona. Gun-rights money totaled nearly $499,000 over the 20 years, and all but $209 went to Republicans. Gun-control cash totaled more than $15,000, and all of it went to Democrats, most of whom lost their races, the data show. The state ranked 10th nationally for donations from gun-rights proponents and 30th for contributions from gun-control advocates, campaign-finance data show. The Center for Responsive Politics tallies campaign donations by interest group in several ways, including contributions from individuals who gave previously to a gun-issue political-action committee or who are employed by a gun-related company. It's unknown if gun-rights contributions have ever swung an election. But, like any interest group, gun-rights advocates believe their money can provide a critical edge and will amplify their voice in government. Ray La Raja, an associate professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts, said the influence of gun-rights supporters is disproportionate to their numbers. "You have a relatively small but intense group of people who feel strongly about an issue like gun rights," La Raja said. "Public-opinion polls show most Americans want more gun control, but they're diffuse. . . . These other groups organize really well." 'The NRA is smart' Groups such as the NRA, which accounts for most gun-rights-related donations based on support for its PAC, have been shrewd in where they help direct campaign money, some experts said. "The NRA is smart in the way it spends. It doesn't really give its money to candidates who aren't in close races," said Clyde Wilcox, a government professor at Georgetown University whose research has examined the effects of interest groups in politics. In Quayle's race last year, prolific fundraising from all sources helped catapult him into contention. But support from gun-rights groups was especially strong, ranking him sixth nationally in such support among all House candidates nationwide. Trent Franks, by comparison, is among the staunchest supporters of guns in Congress, yet the Glendale Republican collected just $2,750 from known gun-rights supporters last year. He has won each of his five terms by at least 20 percentage points and thus is less likely to get big donations from gun-rights supporters, experts said. Instead, he may receive other kinds of support, such as mobilizing voters to cast their ballots. "The NRA is like the 800-pound gorilla in there," Wilcox said. "The mobilization of their 3.8 million members and their family is the main activity. The NRA would say that kind of mobilization is the most important thing they do." Republican candidates in seven of Arizona's eight congressional districts received money from gun-rights donors in 2010. By contrast, gun-control donors made no identifiable contributions to Arizona's races last year, campaign-finance data show. J.D. Hayworth, who served in the House from 1995 until 2007, collected a total of $72,000 from gun-rights donors during his eight campaigns for office - easily the most in Arizona in the past 20 years and enough to rank him 16th nationally among more than 1,200 House and Senate candidates since 1990. Candidates with the most gun-control support made quick political bows. Nearly half of gun-control money in Arizona went to former U.S. Rep. Karan English, a Democrat, in 1994, the year she was ousted by Hayworth after serving one term. She helped attract gun-control money by voting in favor of the Brady Bill, which required federal background checks, and an assault-weapons ban. Both measures helped propel Republicans to historic gains that year. Most of the rest of gun-control cash since 1990 went to Democrat Sam Coppersmith's failed Senate bid in 1994. He, too, voted for the gun-control bills. Since then, gun-control supporters have invested only $250 in an Arizona race - that of Democratic Rep. Ed Pastor in 2008. McCain an example Gun-rights donations can ebb and flow for a single candidate, depending on the opponent and issues at hand. Sen. John McCain angered many gun-rights supporters a decade ago with his pursuit of campaign-finance reforms, which sought to silence issue groups like the NRA in the last 60 days of elections. He also upset those interests by supporting the closing of a loophole that exempts private sellers at gun shows from having to run background checks on buyers. In his presidential race in 2000, he received almost no money from gun-rights donors. Later, he relaxed his push for closing the gun-show loophole, and the campaign-finance reform issue went away when the U.S. Supreme Court neutralized the parts that limited interest-group spending. In his 2008 race for president, McCain collected $452,000 from gun-rights supporters. In his Senate race last year, they showered him with nearly $30,000, double what he had collected from them in his previous Senate races. His opponent in the primary, Hayworth, received less than $4,700. Outside of donations, gun-issue groups, like any advocacy group, can advocate for or against candidates independently but can't coordinate with the campaigns. This spending also is lopsided. The NRA has spent $339,000 supporting Arizona Republican candidates in this way since 2004, records show. The organization also spent nearly $1,700 opposing Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick in 2010. Arizona ranked 13th in such NRA donations during that time. On the other side, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, the most visible gun-control group, spent about $81,000 on advocacy in 2004, nearly all of it to oppose President George W. Bush's re-election. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the group hasn't reported any independent expenditures since. Gun-control groups say they haven't given up. They tout legal victories in courts around the nation as a sign of how they are affecting public policy. But the tone in Washington and statehouses across the nation suggests gun-rights organizations are winning, Wilcox said. Their effort was helped by a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2008 striking down Washington, D.C.'s ban on handguns. "If you want to think about the impact of all this, just think about what we never debate anymore," he said. "The debate on gun rights has been in the last couple of years, 'Can you carry a loaded weapon into a federally protected wildlife preserve?' We're not even talking about bans now. The whole debate has shifted really far in the last 10 or 15 years."
Guns in Arizona: Sales at record pace by Max Jarman - Jul. 15, 2011 12:00 AM The Arizona Republic Guns are selling at a record pace this year at sporting-goods stores and specialty shops in Arizona, creating millions of dollars in revenue for retailers. The ability to carry a concealed weapon without a permit, general apprehension and lingering concerns that the Obama administration could crack down on gun ownership are among the sales drivers. In Arizona, it is likely that more than 200,000 new weapons will be put in buyers' hands after background checks this year. That figure doesn't include firearms purchased at gun shows and through private transactions. Such non-tracked sales are thought to account for 40 percent of all sales, adding about 150,000 guns purchased annually. The estimated sales total: about 350,000 guns per year. Retailers report that demand for small handguns that can be concealed in a purse or briefcase has soared, while sales of rifles and shotguns have remained flat or declined. Firearms are widely available at many major retailers in Arizona, including sporting-goods stores such as Cabela's, Bass Pro Shops, Sports Authority, Dick's Sporting Goods and Big 5 Sporting Goods. Firearms sales remain brisk to consumers across the nation, as well, and retailers make sure they are stocked up: Nationally, retailers buy more firearms than golf equipment. The Maryland-based Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association reported that $2.8 billion worth of firearms was sold by manufacturers to sporting-goods retailers in 2010, eclipsing the $2.35 billion in golf equipment sold that year. Only fitness equipment generated more sales for equipment manufacturers, at $3.2 billion. "Firearms traditionally have been one of the top three sellers at sporting-goods stores," said Mike May, a spokesman for the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association. Sales to retailers from manufacturers have risen dramatically since 2007. And even with an 11 percent drop in revenue in 2010 compared with 2009, firearms sales at sporting-goods retailers are up more than 20 percent since 2007, May said. In addition to major retailers and specialty gun shops, firearms are available at 200 pawnshops in the state. Many pawnshops sell new weapons in addition to firearms that have been pawned and never claimed. Busy marketplace The FBI reports that 123,043 people submitted themselves to background checks to purchase guns in Arizona through June. That puts the state on track to break the record of 215,379 background checks in 2009, the year President Barack Obama took office. The federal government requires the background checks for guns purchased through dealers licensed by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Although the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS, application doesn't reflect an actual purchase, less than 2 percent of the applicants are rejected, and it is seen as a reliable indicator of gun sales and consumer demand. In June, the ATF reported there were 1,629 licensed dealers, manufacturers and collectors of firearms and ammunition in Arizona. That compares with 1,589 in January 2011 and 1,566 in June 2010. In Massachusetts and Washington, two states with populations similar to Arizona's, there were, respectively, 492 and 1,155 licensed dealers, manufacturers and collectors of firearms and ammunition. Experts attribute the relatively large number of licensees in Arizona to the state's strong gun culture and gun-friendly laws. Most of the license holders are dealers. In Arizona, about 1,200 of the 1,629 licensees are buyers and sellers of firearms. They range from gun shops, sporting-goods retailers and pawnshops to individuals, primarily gun enthusiasts, who hold dealer licenses so they can buy directly from manufacturers. Walmart, which stopped selling guns at most stores in 2006 because of weak sales, has recently restocked rifles and shotguns at 1,700 of its 3,800 stores, including many in Arizona. Walmart spokeswoman Ashley Hardy attributed their return to customer demand. "People depend on us for hunting and sporting goods, and we listened to the feedback and added them back," she said. The Walmart stores do not sell handguns. "We carry sporting firearms only," Hardy said. Although background checks are required for guns purchased through licensed retailers, no such screening is needed for guns purchased at the more than 20 major gun shows held in Arizona each year or through private transactions among individuals. Non-licensed sales, which are hard to track, are thought to represent about 40 percent of the approximately 20 million guns that are sold in the U.S. each year. Aaron Merchant started selling guns out of his Ahwatukee Farmers Insurance agency but outgrew the space last year and opened Merchant Firearms in Ahwatukee Foothills. Merchant said he expected his business to gross $1.5 million this year. The shop specializes in higher-end weapons. "We don't sell the cheap Saturday night specials that some stores do," he said. No permit needed Firearms sales in Arizona get a boost from some of the nation's most liberal gun-ownership laws, as well as general angst and lingering concerns about tougher national gun laws. Arizona is one of only three states where a concealed weapon can be carried without a permit. Last year, an Arizona law that required gun owners to have permits to carry concealed weapons was repealed, allowing people 21 and older to carry guns out of sight. Arizona dealers note that demand continues to grow for small handguns that can be concealed in a purse or briefcase, although many believe that most people interested in carrying a concealed weapon already were doing so with a permit. Andrew Molchan, president of the Professional Gun Retailers Association in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., attributes the increase in gun sales to a number of factors, including general apprehension about the direction of the country, and worries that the Obama administration will tighten gun-control laws, and the fact that more states now allow people to carry concealed weapons, generally with a permit. "General apprehension is good for gun sales," he said, noting that sales tend to spike during recessions and times of political unrest. One of the biggest drivers is fear of tighter gun-control laws. Besides the jumps in gun sales in 2008 and 2009 when Obama was elected and took office, there was a sizable jump in 1994 when President Bill Clinton banned assault weapons. Sales soared in 2005 when it became legal again to buy semiautomatic rifles and semiautomatic pistols with large ammunition magazines. Tragic shooting incidents also can spike sales because of similar apprehension about the enactment of stricter gun laws. Gun sales jumped after the Columbine High School shootings in Colorado in 1999, and Molchan believes the Jan. 8 attack on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords that left six people dead near Tucson could be driving some of the increased sales so far this year. A slight uptick Brittany Hightower, a saleswoman at Bear Mountain Sports in Mesa, noticed a slight increase in sales after the Tucson-area tragedy, as did Dave LaRue, owner of Legendary Guns of the West in Phoenix. LaRue said he also saw an increase in high-capacity magazine sales after the Giffords shootings because people were worried they may be banned. The magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition were banned with assault weapons in 1994 and became legal to own again when the ban expired in 2004. The gunman used a Glock 19 pistol with 33-round magazines in the attacks. Reach the reporter at max.jarman@arizonarepublic.com. Republic reporter Cathryn Creno contributed to this article.
Guns in Arizona: Gun makers find place in the sun Manufacturers like Ariz. climate, firearms culture by Max Jarman - Jul. 15, 2011 12:00 AM The Arizona Republic Its dry, warm climate, its pro-gun politics and its shooting culture make this former Wild West state appealing to firearms and components manufacturers. More than 100 manufacturers of firearms and components in Arizona are licensed and regulated by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Those manufacturers generate hundreds of millions of dollars in annual sales. The state has mainstream manufacturers such as Sturm, Ruger & Co., which operates a pistol manufacturing facility in Prescott. It also is home to boutique companies, such as Patriot Ordnance Factory, a Glendale semiautomatic rifle maker, and Coharie Arms Inc., which assembles clones of MP5 semiautomatic rifles in Mesa. Combined, the companies employ more than 1,000 people. Based on federal background checks, demand for guns - mostly handguns - in Arizona is up 16 percent since 2007. And that represents only those weapons purchased through licensed dealers. About 40 percent of the guns sold in Arizona are purchased at gun shows through private transactions that are not tracked by the federal government. The increased demand is being seen by manufacturers such as Sturm, Ruger & Co. Ruger reported that sales of pistols to retailers rose 23 percent in 2010 and that demand for revolvers was up 16 percent. Ruger's Prescott-made pistols produced $108 million in sales for the company last year. "It's a great state for firearms," said Kelly McMillan, president of McMillan Fiberglass Stocks and an officer in the related McMillan Firearms Manufacturing. "The politics are pro-firearms, and the weather is as good as it gets for making fiberglass gun stocks," he said. Synthetic gun stocks, pioneered a half-century ago, are stable in any weather or climate and much lighter than wood stocks. "People can go out and shoot year-round," McMillan said of the state's shooting culture. And there is plenty of state and federal land where it is legal to fire guns. Phoenix-based McMillan, which manufactures precision bolt-action hunting rifles, is one of a number of Arizona companies that also makes gun components used by other manufacturers. McMillan said that the majority of the 50-employee company's revenue comes from selling its custom rifle stocks, and the business is growing. The privately held company doesn't report revenue figures. Another company, Granite Mountain Arms in Phoenix, makes firing mechanisms, or actions, for high-end hunting rifles. Young Manufacturing, also in Phoenix, makes aftermarket components to customize M-15 and AR-15 semiautomatic rifles In California, it is illegal to own a semiautomatic weapon with a magazine holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition. Because Arizona has no restrictions on owning semiautomatic weapons, there's a thriving trade for modifying and customizing military weapons such as Russian Saiga combat shotguns, M-16 assault rifles used by the U.S. military and other weapons. Young Manufacturing founder Dan Young cites a strong demand for the company's products. "When Obama got in, there was a lot of panic buying, and we were running 24 hours a day," Young said "It dropped off last year, and now it's picked up again." The 20-year-old business has 13 employees. Young is not sure what is causing the increase in demand for his products but suspects it has to do with lingering concerns about the economy. "When the economy gets bad, people get concerned about protecting what they have," he said. Phoenix-based Robar Companies Inc. builds and refurbishes high-performance rifles used by law-enforcement SWAT teams. The company also makes bolt-action precision rifles for consumers and does considerable business applying custom finishes to most types of firearms. Finishes add protection and a unique look. Robbie Barrkman, who founded Robar in 1986, was an instructor at a Phoenix-area shooting school and started fixing students' guns in his spare time. "It grew into a business," he said. Barrkman agreed with others that Arizona's friendly stance toward gun ownership has contributed to the thriving firearms manufacturing sector in the state. "There is a big shooting public in Arizona," he said. "There are lots of gun owners and lots of places were they can shoot."
Guns in Arizona: Killing in self-defense led to misery for man by Richard Ruelas - Jul. 15, 2011 12:00 AM The Arizona Republic Time slowed for Harold Fish as the man rushed toward him on the hiking trail outside Payson. His gun drawn, Fish had time to do all the things his self-defense instructors had taught him, the ones it seemed he never would have time to do in the heat of the moment. Fish already had fired at the ground in front of three growling dogs running toward him, scaring them away. But it didn't deter the man running toward him. Fish looked at the man's hands, which were clenched into fists. Maybe, he thought, to hide a small knife. He locked on the man's eyes and didn't see any sense of him backing down. It wasn't the look an unarmed man would have in the face of a weapon. "A switch just gets thrown in your head," Fish, 64, said as he remembered the May 2004 incident. "All of a sudden, the gun comes up and you start seeing yourself pull the trigger. "In the back of your mind, a voice is there saying, 'You have to stop this now.' " Fish did, with three shots. Grant Kuenzli, 43, collapsed at his feet. It was the quintessential situation cited by gun-carrying citizens. Fish was able to defend himself against an imminent attack. He had gone through training to ready himself for such a scenario. But Fish was not prepared for what was to follow. He was put on trial and found guilty of murder. He was imprisoned. He faced the possibility of a civil trial from Kuenzli's family. He still finds himself in deep debt to pay his attorneys, who were able to get an appellate court to toss his conviction in 2009. "What nobody teaches is what happens when you use that firearm," Fish said, speaking from his Glendale home. "They focus on you surviving the incident." Those who carry a gun for self-defense do so because of the off-chance that they will need to protect themselves. Imagined scenarios involve someone breaking into their home or accosting them. That is why Fish started carrying a gun for self-defense, including while camping or hiking. But he thought that most likely he would only use it to shoot a rabid coyote or a skunk that wandered into his camp. "It was like a spare tire in the car," he said. "In case something happened." Something happened on May 11, 2004. Fish was completing a 10-mile hike near Strawberry. He waved to a man camped outside his car with three dogs. It was Kuenzli, the man he would kill minutes later. Kuenzli, who was living out of his car, volunteered at an animal shelter and had picked up two of the dogs to give them a day of exercise. He had his own dog, as well. None was leashed. Fish saw the dogs running toward him, the lead one snarling, and fired at the ground. The dogs turned tail. Then, Fish saw Kuenzli run at him. Fish lifted his gun and fired three times. Fish believes Kuenzli would have tried to knock him out or done damage with the screwdriver Kuenzli had in his back pocket. Fish figured a rational person would have stopped once the person had seen his weapon and heard it fire. "He crossed the threshold in his mind somewhere," Fish said. "At some point, he decided to go all in and take me out." The detective investigating the scene initially told Fish the shooting would probably be ruled self-defense. But the story drew state and national attention, and the Coconino County Attorney's Office was flooded with phone calls and e-mails demanding prosecution. The county attorney charged Fish with murder. A jury convicted him, and Fish was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Being in prison let Fish see that there is truly a criminal element in society that cannot be reasoned with. "I met guys by the dozen that I hope and pray should never get out of prison," he said. It's part of the reason he still carries. He's allowed to because his felony conviction was erased. Fish's conviction was tossed out by the Arizona Court of Appeals, which ruled that the jury wasn't told enough about Kuenzli's violent past or the aggressive nature of the dogs and didn't get proper instructions about what constitutes an attack. Fish was released from prison in July 2009. Prosecutors said they would not prosecute him again. Upon his release, Kuenzli's sister, Linda Almeter, told The Republic that she didn't want Fish free and that he never took responsibility for his act. "My brother can never reclaim his life," she said. Fish has his freedom, but he can't recoup the dollars he spent fighting the case. He took out a second mortgage on his house. Relatives did the same with theirs, including his retired father. Fish estimates he spent about $700,000 on legal fees. He expects he'll die before all of it is paid back. "I can't afford to go to court again," he said. "I cannot withstand another prosecution." He still hunts with a gun and carries a handgun for protection. But if he's ever confronted again, he said he'll try a different self-defense tactic. "He's going to be shooting me in the back because I'm running away."
Guns in Arizona: A life-or-death question by Ronald J. Hansen and Dennis Wagner - Jul. 17, 2011 12:00 AM The Arizona Republic Arizona has some of the least restrictive gun laws in the nation. It also has one of the highest rates of gun deaths in the country. But how closely are guns and violence connected? The answer, like much involving guns in America, is complicated. There is no shortage of research on the topic of guns and violence, giving both sides of the debate plenty of support for their views. Adding to the muddle, interest groups favoring gun control or gun rights find additional backing from a web of public-opinion polls, lending a Rorschach quality to the debate. With the lack of conclusive data in some cases and all the variables of human behavior in a country of 300 million, the role of guns in society remains as contested as ever. "One thing there is consensus on is guns increase the lethality of violence," said Daniel Webster, co- director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research. "There's less agreement on whether guns lead to more violence or less. . . . It's a very difficult question to answer with scientific certainty." Eugene Volokh, a law professor at UCLA with expertise on gun-related issues, points to a 2005 paper in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine that could not discern any significant impact on violence from eight types of gun-control laws. "We don't have any reliable studies on the subject," he said. "It does seem pretty clear that the possible impact of any (gun-related) laws is going to be modest in either direction." Debating gun effects High-profile shootings, like the Jan. 8 rampage near Tucson, temporarily renew interest in preventing future tragedies. But that interest typically fades without significant action, in part because despite the national interest in guns, there is little common ground on what effect, if any, they actually have on safety. Strong public support for the Second Amendment and key legal victories affirming gun rights likely play an even larger role. In 1997, John Lott and David Mustard, then economists at the University of Chicago, ignited a research firestorm with a seminal paper later made into the book "More Guns, Less Crime." They examined crime statistics from 1977 to 1992 and concluded that "allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons deters violent crimes, without increasing accidental deaths." They estimated that restrictive gun laws led to 1,500 additional murders in 1992 alone, along with thousands of other serious crimes. Conservatives and gun-rights groups trumpeted the work, though many in academic circles dispute the findings. Law professors Ian Ayres of Yale and John Donohue of Stanford are among those who have cast doubt on the rigor of the analysis. In their 2003 paper, they acknowledged that Lott and Mustard had established that the predicted bloodbaths from more lenient concealed-weapons laws didn't happen. But Ayres and Donohue found "sporadic and extraordinarily fragile" evidence that the changes helped reduce crime. They said it appeared just as likely the gun laws increased crime. In 2004, the National Academy of Sciences reviewed Lott's findings as well as others but hardly settled the statistical debate. The academy's review committee could not endorse any of the research on the effects of concealed-weapons laws, good or bad. The data in these reports was "too weak to support unambiguous conclusions," the academy wrote. Webster said there is more agreement that the presence of guns increases the likelihood of gun deaths, but that doesn't mean an increase in overall crime, research has found. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that Arizona, for example, exceeded the national rate for gun-involved slayings every year from 1994 until 2007, the latest year available. It has exceeded the national rates of gun-involved suicides and of overall gun-involved deaths every year since at least 1981, when officials began collecting data. Arizona was below the national rate for violent crime in 2009, ending 10 straight years of higher-than-average totals for the state, FBI records show. Before that, Arizona had been below the national violent-crime rate 15 of the previous 18 years, dating to 1981. Experts on crime statistics caution against reading too much into the FBI's numbers, in part because of uneven reporting. Records on fatalities tend to be better reported than other types of crime and more complete, making them stronger for research purposes, Webster said. Volokh said the overall violence rate, rather than gun deaths alone, is critical because victims of homicide, for example, could have been fatally stabbed or beaten. Government data on guns is thin in part because of lawmakers. In 1996, Congress said no public funds could be spent "for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention . . . to advocate or promote gun control." At the time, conservatives complained that the agency was using taxpayer money to erode gun rights. Sides agree on Arizona If there is any agreement between those who favor gun rights and those who support gun control it is that Arizona is friendly on firearms. Former Arizona Attorney General Bob Corbin, one of three state residents to have served as president of the National Rifle Association, declared: "Arizona is one of the best states as far as gun laws are concerned. We trust our people out here." The Legal Community Against Violence, a gun-control group based in San Francisco, ranked Arizona 50th for firearms legislation. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence recently gave Arizona its lowest score, a zero, for firearms regulation, along with Alaska and Utah. One reason for Arizona's reputation is the pre-emptive authority that prevents cities from devising ordinances that are more restrictive than the state's laws. California, widely regarded as one of the most restrictive states for guns, allows such ordinances. Last month, the city of Oakley in northern California passed an emergency ordinance that, among other things, extends the waiting period to complete a gun purchase from the state's usual 10 days to 15. Arizona has no waiting period. It also doesn't require gun owners to register their weapons, as some other states do. Arizona doesn't limit the number of guns an individual can buy within any time frame. California, Maryland and Virginia limit purchases to one per month. Alan Korwin, an expert on firearms law and author of "The Arizona Gun Owner's Guide," said there is a clear trend for the state's gun laws to become even more open. Last year, Arizona became the third state to dispense with permits to carry concealed weapons. This year, the Legislature passed bills that would have forced universities to allow concealed weapons on campus rights of way and local cities and towns to allow guns in public buildings. Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed both in April. She called the guns-on-campus bill "poorly written" and complained that the public-buildings bill was riddled with "loopholes." The public pulse Each side in the gun debate declares victory in the court of public opinion. Polls have shown the nation has grown less supportive of general gun controls over the past 20 years. In 1990, Gallup found that 78 percent of those polled supported more restrictive gun-sale laws. By 2000, it was 62 percent. By 2009, it fell to 44 percent. In the first days after the rampage near Tucson, just 20 percent of Americans polled by Gallup thought the shooting could have been prevented with tighter gun controls. While the general numbers suggest growing support for gun rights, other polls show a significant desire for specific gun-control measures. The group Mayors Against Illegal Guns polled voters in five states including Arizona in February and found strong support for requiring instant background checks on all gun purchases, something federal law doesn't require for deals involving private sellers. It also found lopsided support in each state for improving the background-check system by including more information from federal agencies and states. In all cases, the results were true even among gun owners, the group said. Notably, American Viewpoint, a polling firm that worked for the presidential campaigns of George W. Bush and John McCain, conducted the Arizona survey, seemingly undercutting claims of presumed bias. The results do not surprise Hildy Saizow, president of Arizonans for Gun Safety. While Arizona has a historic gun culture, Saizow said modern residents do not support the idea of countless citizens bringing concealed firearms into public buildings without any requirement for training or registration. "There is this Wild West attitude here," she said, "but I think it's really a very vocal minority."
The folks at the Arizona Republic are demonizing guns in this article. Guns in Arizona: Victims decry public's acceptance of violence by Richard Ruelas - Jul. 17, 2011 12:00 AM The Arizona Republic A man armed with a handgun opens fire on people waiting at the entrance of a Phoenix business. With a vacant look in his eyes, he fires indiscriminately, sending people scrambling for cover. The gunfire, which lasts only a few seconds, kills some, injures others. He stops shooting when he runs out of bullets. That is when bystanders tackle him and hold him for police. He is arrested and charged with multiple counts of murder and attempted murder. His comments to police are nonsensical. A judge is trying to determine if he is mentally competent to stand trial. This shooting happened the day after Christmas 2010 at a strip club in Phoenix, 13 days before a gunman fired into a crowd at a congressional meet-and-greet outside a grocery store near Tucson. The shooting near Tucson would kill six, including a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl, and wound 13 others, including U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. The apparent assassination attempt on a congresswoman, and the random firing into a crowd waiting to see her, drew immediate, widespread media attention. The shooting at the Great Alaskan Bush Co. killed two, an employee and a patron, and wounded two more, both customers. This random act of violence was treated as routine. Its meaning was not parsed. The suspect's life was not picked over for clues of what might have motivated him. Reporters were not camped outside his parents' home. The victims were not publicly eulogized. The injured began recovering in anonymity. Lynn Borhauer, the mother of Adam Cooley, a bouncer killed in the December shootings, said society seemed to absorb that violent act, taking it as something expected, not tragic. "I don't think people realize the devastation this causes," Borhauer said, sitting in her north Phoenix home. "I cry every day still, and I don't know what triggers it." Tiffany Gregory, who was at the club with a group of friends on a whim, had a bullet pierce a hole in her arm. Since the shooting, she's noticed the casual nature of guns in pop culture, on television shows and on the news. Two months after the wound in her arm closed up, she moved out of the Phoenix area and back to Cottonwood, a rural town north of Phoenix where she grew up, in order to "get away from the sirens," she said. "It's like, why is this accepted in our society?" Gregory said. Across the country, in Hudson, Fla., Cynthia MacFarlane was left to figure out how her son, Gavin, went from well-paid computer professional to a suspect in a mass shooting. And why tragedies like these appear to happen more regularly. "Over, say, the past five or 10 years, it seems less unusual for something to happen like that," she said during a phone interview. "It seems like every week, just about, something is going amiss like that." The December shooting at the strip club closed out the tally of 117 homicides in Phoenix in 2010, 86 of which involved guns. With so many homicides, even random shooting sprees at the hands of seemingly disturbed individuals are not guaranteed to shock the public conscience. Sgt. Trent Crump, a Phoenix police spokesman, said he often is puzzled by why some crimes draw public attention and scrutiny and others don't. With so many murders, he said, the public and the media concentrate on only those with the most sympathetic victims or circumstances. Those involving gangs and drugs don't merit media attention or public outcries. Crump said the strip-club shooting would have received more attention if it occurred after the Giffords shooting because it would have fit in with the public discussion about how disturbed people get weapons. "The gun issues would have been the monster there," he said. Shortly after the Tucson shooting, police reports showed that the suspect, Jared Loughner, bought his ammunition hours before at a Walmart. Court documents do not track the history of the weapon and ammunition that MacFarlane is accused of using. His mother, Cynthia, said her son did not grow up around guns. Not in Connecticut, where he was born, nor later in Florida, where he attended middle school and high school and lived with his grandparents. MacFarlane didn't show interest in college and instead moved to Phoenix, where he worked his way up through two computer companies, finally becoming a network administrator at eBay. His mother said his annual salary was around $90,000. A girlfriend in Arizona introduced him to the sport of target shooting, his mother said. She believes he bought a gun during that time, keeping it even after that relationship ended. MacFarlane's long work hours, coupled with the time-zone difference, meant he and his mother didn't talk on the phone very often. They would e-mail, Cynthia MacFarlane said, but it wasn't the same as having a conversation. She tried to stay satisfied with occasional calls, not wanting to smother him from across the country. "I didn't want to be too motherly," she said. "Give him his space, I guess." She visited him once in Arizona, she said, after he was admitted to a hospital two years ago and diagnosed with bipolar disorder. But, with medication, "he was able to right himself and his way of thinking and continue on with working," she said. But 2010 brought stress for MacFarlane. His mother said he sank into debt. County documents show his home in Surprise was foreclosed and sold at public auction in May 2010. He moved into an apartment in Scottsdale. On Dec. 23, MacFarlane checked himself into the emergency room, his mother said, prompted by his live-in girlfriend, who worried about the "thoughts that were coming to him." Doctors gave him some pills and released him, his mother said. On Christmas Eve, he called his mother and sounded happy and cheerful. He made plans to visit her in Florida, saying it had been too long and they needed to reconnect. He planned on spending Christmas Day with his sister in Mesa. His mother told him to be careful on the road. "I told him that if it was an antidepressant (he was taking), not to drive," she said. The day after Christmas, a Sunday, along with his sister's family, he attended Mass. "That night," his mother said, "he went out." MacFarlane told officers he felt compelled to shoot people that evening, according to police. He went to two other clubs before sitting for a while at Great Alaskan and deciding it was the place. He hugged a bartender and said he'd be right back. He left the club, passing a group that was just entering, and went to his car to get the Taurus .38 revolver. Officers would later conclude that MacFarlane was not under the influence of alcohol or drugs. The group just entering the club was made up of friends who grew up together in Cottonwood. Having dispensed with family obligations, they were meeting for a night out and thought a stop at a strip club had the right mix of rebellion and goofiness. MacFarlane would later tell police his intention was to fire at the first people he saw when he re-entered the club. The bouncer, Cooley, 34, and one of the patrons, Tony Garcia, 20, died in the foyer. MacFarlane also fired at Joshua Rivers, 20, hitting him in the upper chest, according to police. Rivers did not want to be interviewed for this story on the advice of his attorney. A posting on his Facebook page said he had six bullet fragments lodged in his back and was unable to walk. Gregory started running when she saw the gun. She never felt the impact of the bullet, but suddenly, as she turned a corner, she "felt disoriented," she said. "I fell on my hands and knees." That's when she felt her arm burning and throbbing and realized she was shot. She kept hearing gunshots. "I got up and continued to run because I didn't know if he was coming up behind me or where the bullets were going," she said. She followed other patrons and dancers who were running to a private lounge area and ducked behind couches. Gregory told one of the dancers she'd been shot, and the dancer helped remove her sweater to see the wound. "It immediately just squirted blood at her and me," Gregory said. "I remember her gasping and holding my sweater on top of it." The gunman walked through the club. A patron ran at him, but the gunman pointed the .38 at him. Out of bullets, the gunman struck the patron in the head with the gun, court documents say. He then left the gun on a table and kept walking through the club. Gregory said the gunman walked into the private lounge area where she was hiding. "He just came in stark-faced, nothing there, entirely vacant," she said. "I immediately thought, 'He has a gun still. He's going to finish me off.' " A man wearing an Arizona Cardinals jersey got in the man's face, Gregory said, and started yelling at him, asking why he had to go around shooting people. Other men crowded the gunman and took him to the ground. Gregory took that as a chance to flee. She ran with the dancer to the dressing room. There, other dancers used their tank tops to make a tourniquet around her arm. Gregory called home with the news. Her mother, Amy Dudley, said the call "changes you on a cellular level. . . . It alters who you are completely." While recovering at home, daily packing her wound with gauze, Gregory saw news of a gunman taking people hostage in a Baja Fresh restaurant outside a mall in Chandler. That was Jan. 5, just three days before the Tucson shootings. It was the kind of news event that she used to not think about much. But watching it pushed her over an emotional edge. "I was already kind of disgusted with the world to begin with, already mad that our society has gotten to this point and that we're at the point where it isn't a big deal to anybody," she said. "Anytime I ever heard about anybody getting shot, I never batted an eye," she said. This time, she was able to place herself in the restaurant with the people being held at gunpoint. "I knew that terror, and I had experienced it." She stopped watching the news after that, so she didn't find out about the shooting outside Tucson until a week after it happened. "Then it was like all over again, thinking about those other families," she said. "After that, I decided I didn't want to be in Phoenix . . . I just had to leave." Gregory said the state should increase regulation of guns, including recording all sales between private owners. She also wants mandatory training classes. Such hoops, she said, might reduce the number of gun owners, including people she knows who own a gun just to "be cool." "They'll probably say that's too much work and too much money to pay for me to do it," she said. "So that's one less irresponsible person with a gun." But beyond laws, she thinks society has become too complacent about gun violence. "We're trained to expect violence and to adapt around it," she said, "because it's not something that maybe we might want to change." The family of Cooley, the bouncer who died that night, sees it exactly the opposite way. That madmen and violent criminals roam the streets shows that decent citizens need to be armed. Borhauer, Cooley's mother, said no law would have stopped her son from being shot that night. "I don't think there's a way," she said, sitting next to a photo of her slain son. "I think if somebody's going to do it, if somebody has it in their mind to do it, they'll find a gun." Cooley was a stocky former football player who knew how to handle himself and defuse situations without his fists. Still, Borhauer worried about the job he held for nearly 10 years. "What can I say?" she said. "I didn't like it." Borhauer worried about the rowdy crowd and bar fights. He would come over for dinner every Tuesday, and they would part with the same words. She would tell him to stay safe. He would tell her he could handle himself. Borhauer wanted him to wear a bulletproof vest to work. If not more. "With all I've been through in my life, I'd just soon bubble wrap (him), but I can't," she said. "Life is what it is." Borhauer also lost Cooley's father to a gun. The family was returning from a grocery store when Cooley, then 2, dropped a penny on the carport and started crying. His father, Troy, bent over to pick it up for him. The gun he carried in his shoulder holster slipped out. The gun's hammer hit the concrete threshold and fired, striking Troy Cooley in the chest and killing him. The boy was just inches from his father. But the family never shied away from weapons. Borhauer still keeps guns in the house, most of them in a safe, and, after her first husband's death, went back to the gun range to shake off any lingering fears. "It took me back a little to fire a gun at first," she said. "But it was just my whole upbringing. I've had guns my whole life." Adam Cooley owned a gun for self-defense, a gun he kept in his car when he went to work. "I don't think he'd want us to change the way we do things today," his brother, Terry Cooley, said. "I absolutely know he wouldn't. As a matter of fact, he'd be upset if we changed our entire structure and the way we lived." Terry Cooley said he shoots at the Ben Avery range in north Phoenix every week and, not long after his brother's death, went out for target practice. He said he didn't feel any hesitation about picking up a gun again. The first time he shot while wearing a wristband in memory of his brother, he shot a perfect score. "Guns are not always used to kill people," he said. "They don't have to be scary." The family of Tony Garcia, the customer who died, declined an interview request. Garcia's sister, Melissa, said in an e-mail that she did not blame Arizona's lax gun laws for the shooting. "Tony is not dead because of (Arizona) gun laws," she wrote. "He is dead because some mentally sick man was 'compelled' to kill someone. "He could have used a knife or a bomb or anything else. He just happened to get his hands on a gun. "That's all I have to say." Cynthia MacFarlane said she spoke to her son on Tuesday. He was on medication and sounding better. He got emotional and said he missed her. She knows that jailhouse phone calls are taped and subject to be used as evidence, so she didn't ask her son about what happened or what led up to it. "I really don't know," she said, "what prompted my son to do that." Reach the reporter at 602-444-8473 or richard.ruelas@arizonarepublic.com.
This article is NOT part of the Arizona Republic series of articles on guns. It is from the Los Angles Times, but I included it anyhow because it was related to guns. Government criminal record keeping is incomplete California criminal database poorly maintained By Jack Dolan, Los Angeles Times July 17, 2011 Reporting from Sacramento— The criminal records system California relies on to stop child abusers from working at schools and violent felons from buying guns is so poorly maintained that it routinely fails to alert officials to a subject's full criminal history. The computerized log exists to provide an instant snapshot of a criminal past, informing police, regulators and potential employers of offenses such as murder, rape and drug dealing in a person's background. But nearly half of the arrest records in the database don't say whether the person in question was convicted. Information from millions of records buried at courts and law enforcement agencies has never been entered in the system. So a small army of state employees must spend precious time — and millions of dollars each year — chasing paper records to fill in the gaps. The resulting delays often make it impossible for a police officer to learn immediately whether a driver he or she has pulled over is a convicted felon, or let a gun-shop owner know if it's safe to hand over a weapon. "There are obviously serious public safety implications if that database is incomplete," said Dennis Henigan, president of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a national gun-control group. "Every record missing from the system could be someone who is too dangerous to buy a gun." California has a shoddy system for collecting case results from 58 county courts and hundreds of local prosecutors and police agencies, said Travis LeBlanc, a special assistant attorney general who oversees technology operations in the state Department of Justice. The final outcome —- guilty, not guilty, case dismissed — is missing for about 7.7 million of the 16.4 million arrest records entered into state computers over the last decade, according to LeBlanc. More than 3 million of those are felony arrests. Last month, California's inspector general estimated that 450 inmates who had completed their sentences but were still "a high risk for violence" had been released without supervision from parole agents. In some of those cases, prison officials relying on the faulty database didn't know the inmates had previous convictions and were supposed to be strictly supervised. The data hole persists despite more than $35 million in federal grants the state Justice Department has received since 1995 to help plug it, according to department records. And a project to modernize court computers that began in 2001 is still not finished, even as its cost has ballooned from $260 million to as much as $1.9 billion, according to a state audit earlier this year. "This is completely unacceptable," said state Sen. Kevin De Leon (D-Los Angeles), a longtime critic of the state's underperforming computer contracts. "This is about public safety here. There's no excuse." In an interview last week, state Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris said she had spoken with Chief Justice of California Tani Cantil-Sakauye about the longstanding problem with the crime data. The two — who have been in their positions for less than a year — are looking for ways to bring the computer system into the "21st century," Harris said. The information missing from the state Justice Department's Automated Criminal History System usually takes two to three weeks to obtain but can take even longer, officials said. And the problem doesn't affect only background checks done in California. The state's data are also used by the FBI in criminal checks for gun stores, employers and licensing authorities across the country. Although California has a 10-day waiting period for gun purchases, and officials say they can stall longer if they still don't have answers, most states have a three-day waiting period. In those states, if a background check isn't complete by the end of the third day, the buyer can legally purchase a gun. Some large retailers, such as Wal-Mart, wait until they get a final answer before selling a weapon, said Steve Fischer, spokesman for the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division. "But smaller mom-and-pops, they need that revenue, so they transfer the guns" as soon as the three days pass, Fischer said. If a conviction is discovered after that, the FBI turns the information over to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and "they decide whether to retrieve the gun." Operations to confiscate guns from people who should not have them are time-consuming, potentially dangerous and rarely a complete success, authorities acknowledge. Last month California launched its own effort to round up 1,200 firearms from people whose records were clean when they bought the guns but who had since been judged mentally ill or had restraining orders issued against them. Although the roundup was hailed as a victory, officials acknowledge that they know of at least 34,000 guns — 1,600 of them military-style assault weapons — still in the hands of people prohibited from owning them. Harris said in a statement that her department and local law enforcers don't have the money or manpower to collect them all. The information delays vex the FBI as it performs background checks on millions of people applying for jobs in public safety or for positions in which they would be responsible for children, the elderly or sensitive financial information, Fischer said. When conviction information turns up after a job has been filled, it's up to local authorities to decide what to do with it. "If you're looking at a schoolteacher and they have a 15-year-old DUI, you might overlook that…. If it's a sexual crime, they may be more likely to pursue it," Fischer said. A record is created in the California database any time someone is arrested and his or her fingerprints are taken. The disposition of the case, which may not be decided for months or years, is supposed to be reported to the Justice Department by the county court, district attorney or local police department. Some agencies report dispositions electronically. Others send records in hard copy or even by hand-written note, LeBlanc said, causing long delays in getting the information into the computers. Some local agencies never report the outcome of a case — leaving what police call "naked" arrest records. The state spends millions of dollars a year on labor as it tries to fill in the blanks. "We have 60 full-time people who identify naked arrests and then seek to fix those histories," LeBlanc said. The employees call courts, send letters to prosecutors and query police departments to find the missing pieces. Local law enforcement agencies are forced to do the same kind of leg work, and "you're not going to get answers right away," said Capt. Pat McPherson, an investigator for the Los Angeles County district attorney's office. "It takes a long time." jack.dolan@latimes.com
Again the article that follows is not part of the Arizona Republic's series of articles but an article from the New York Times on Arizona Senator Lori Klein who carries a gun to here job in the Arizona Senate. But I think the article by the folks at the gun grabbing New York Times fits in with the Republic series. Lawmakers, Armed and Dangerous By FRANK BRUNI Published: July 16, 2011 WHILE all the country gaped last week at the acrimony ensnarling the Federal government, Arizonans were treated to an additional, equally bizarre spectacle. You’ll be shocked to hear that a firearm was involved. It was a classic case of he said/she said, but of a particular stripe hard to imagine outside Arizona, where guns are so fervently embraced that I imagine they rank above waffle irons as popular wedding gifts and make the occasional appearance at christenings, too. In dispute was this: Did a local lawmaker intentionally point her loaded .380 Ruger at a newspaper reporter during an interview, or was it all just a silly misunderstanding? The reporter, Richard Ruelas, who writes for The Arizona Republic, said it was deliberate. Not hostile, mind you, but purposeful: State Senator Lori Klein was proudly showing off her piece. He told this story first in an article published Sunday in The Republic, repeated it in subsequent public comments and went through it one more time on the telephone with me. He sounded incredulous still. He said that as he sat with Klein just outside the Senate chamber to discuss her gun-toting ways, “I looked down and saw a red dot on my chest.” He looked up and realized the dot was the laser sight of the Ruger, which she carries in her pocketbook. Although he wasn’t sure just then whether it had bullets in it, she informed him — after she’d lowered the pistol — that it always does. The Republic article caused a public outcry that she had been reckless. Even Arizonans have their limits. She then disputed Ruelas’s account, saying that he had strayed into the gun’s sight as she demonstrated how it worked. After that she went silent. She didn’t respond to either a phone message I left at her senate office or an e-mail I sent. No matter. Anyone who focuses on where she was or wasn’t aiming can’t see the desert for the cactuses. And that desert spreads beyond Arizona, which may be extreme but is nonetheless illustrative. Massacre after massacre hasn’t changed this nation’s mind-boggling blitheness about guns. The most recent massacre to dominate the country’s attention was of course in Arizona in January, when Jared Loughner fired off 31 rounds in 15 seconds, killing 6 people and wounding 13, including United States Representative Gabrielle Giffords. A bullet ripped through her brain. Just two days later, Klein, a state senate freshman, showed up for her swearing-in ceremony in Phoenix with her Ruger. “I pack heat,” she informed Senator Robert Meza, a fellow freshman who was walking alongside her, as he told me in a telephone interview last week. Her tone of voice, he said, was nonchalant. After a security guard noted her gun, so did the news media. A public discussion ensued, and the senate’s president, Russell Pearce, a Republican, had to clarify the chamber’s rules. He said that, while signs posted outside said weapons were banned, that prohibition applied to visitors but not lawmakers, who could keep their guns with them. So Klein, also a Republican, did. Citing the incident between her and Ruelas, Senator Steve Gallardo, a Democrat, called last week for an ethics probe into her actions, but the chairman of the ethics committee, Senator Ron Gould, a Republican, said it wasn’t necessary. Like Klein, he sometimes comes to the Capitol armed, according to local news reports. You’d think Arizona would be cracking down on guns after the January bloodletting. You’d be wrong. Since then, not only did Pearce make clear that Klein and her colleagues could pack heat as they pleased, but state lawmakers voted expressly to allow guns on college campuses. Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, had the good sense to veto that legislation. Sadly, she cited fuzzy language in it — not principle — as the reason. It’s not entirely fair to single out Arizona. Just over a week ago, Wisconsin enacted a law allowing civilians to carry concealed weapons, and the state has been embroiled in a discussion about whether that creates the possibility of guns at Lambeau Field, where the Green Bay Packers play and passions, as well as intoxication levels, run high. This new law means that the only state that still forbids concealed weapons is Illinois, said Chad Ramsey, Federal legislation director for the Brady Campaign, a gun-control advocacy group. Over the last three years, as Michael Luo recently reported in The New York Times, more than 20 states have passed measures enabling people who have been denied firearms because of mental illness to petition to have their rights to own guns restored. And on the Federal level, gun-control legislation promoted in response to the Giffords shooting has gone nowhere fast. The kind of high-capacity clip that enabled Loughner to get off as many rounds and shoot as many people as quickly as he did was illegal from 1994 to 2004, when the Federal assault-weapons ban expired, and there are bills in the House and Senate to make it illegal again. But they have Democratic sponsors only, Ramsey said, and have not been brought up for serious discussion. President Obama hasn’t made gun control any kind of priority. Then again, how could he? An enormous unacknowledged cost of the protracted wrangling over the debt ceiling and the budget is the inability of politicians to devote energy and political capital to much of anything else. Meanwhile, a cavalier attitude about guns persists and even flourishes. Klein, 57, a divorced mother of three who lives in a Phoenix exurb, told Ruelas that she bought a .40-caliber revolver 11 years ago after she was spooked by a rattling at her front door one night. She got the gun on Ladies Night at Shooter’s World. The Ruger came later. She owns several guns now. She wouldn’t specify the number. She said they make her feel safe. But she assured Ruelas that she doesn’t press that view on anyone else. “I don’t like chocolate ice cream,” she said, according to his article. “Am I going to force you not to have any?” Firearms, Häagen-Dazs — it’s all the same. Her Ruger is pink, like a Barbie convertible. Showing it to Ruelas, she reportedly said, “Oh, it’s so cute.” No, Senator Klein, it’s not. It’s a potentially deadly weapon. When are you and the rest of the country going to wake up to that? |