Yet Another School Shooting

(UPDATED -- see below)

It's been a sad week in Oregon.  There are shootings almost every day in Oregon, but this week has been more shocking than most.  Once again, guns got into the wrong hands -- a teen, who then took them to school and killed someone.  In this case, there are two teens dead (including the shooter) and one man injured.

Shooter Jared Padgett (source)

On Tuesday, June 10, 15-year old Jared Padgett woke up in the morning and broke into his father's "secured" guns, stealing an AR-15 assault rifle with nine magazines of ammunition "capable of firing several hundred rounds," a semi-auto handgun, and a knife, put them into a guitar case and duffel bag, and went to school on the school bus.  When asked by other students what was in the case and bag, he said they contained sports gear and a stand for his uniforms.  Once at his school, Reynolds High School in Troutdale, Oregon, he donned a "non-ballistic vest used for carrying ammunition and a multi-sport helmet" and entered into a locker room.  There he shot to death 14-year old Emilio Hoffman, shooting him twice in the chest, and encountered PE teacher and track coach Todd Rispler, grazing the man in the hip with a bullet.  Students said that it "sounded like fireworks were going off inside the school," from all the shots being fired.  Rispler fled from Padgett and went to the office, where he initiated a school-wide lockdown procedure.  Two armed school resource officers, Nick Thompson and Kyle Harris, then found Padgett in the halls and exchanged fire with him.  Padgett retreated to a men's bathroom.  Eventually, as more police and SWAT responded, and the school were being evacuated, hands on heads, to a nearby Fred Meyers parking lot to awaiting, panicked parents, a remote-controlled robot with a camera went into the bathroom and found Padgett dead in a stall from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. 

Todd Rispler (source)

But the gun crimes weren't over.  One other boy, unrelated to the shooting, was found to have a gun on him on school grounds as he sat in a classroom.  He was arrested and taken away.  Why did he have a gun, and where did he get it?  Was he planning on shooting someone, too, unrelated to the Padgett's shooting??

And another man, 21-year old Joseff Powell, who feared for his 15-year old freshman sister's safety, had rushed to an evacuation area at a church, where students were being corralled, evaded a police checkpoint, and was caught with a unlawfully concealed, loaded 9mm semi-auto handgun.  The man claimed "he didn't realize" he had a weapon on him.

Why did young Jared decide to go shooting at his high school?  According to his own diary, he was on a mission to cleanse the world of "sinners."  He was a religious fundamentalist and, since age 12, a deacon in the local Mormon church, where he was thought of as "being quiet" but "highly regarded for his spirituality" by church elders.

But it was more than this, wasn't it?  His parents had just gone through a messy divorce, and his father, no doubt a very pro-gun person, since he owned an assault rifle, had custody of Jared and at least one of his five siblings.  Doubtless this affected young Jared's mindset.  Had his father instilled in him any of the pro-gun paranoia I often report on here at New Trajectory?  I do not know.

And though Jared was, in many ways, a "normal kid" who liked to talk about girls and cars and often seemed friendly, he was also known to be "conceited at times", talk back to teachers, and had an anger streak.

He also "showed off about guns" to his friends, talking about his guns and bullets at home, and "loved guns," and got training in arms as a member of the Junior Reserve Officers' Training Core (JROTC) as a means of one day entering the military.  One can assume, then, that he was trained in gun safety and had gotten all the admonitions about handling guns inappropriately.  Doubtless he went shooting with his father, too. 

Just to re-emphasize:  this boy, who was known to have angry outbursts, arms training, and an unstable family life, and who "showed off about guns," was in a household with guns which were clearly not secured well enough.

14-year old victim, Emilio Hoffman (source)

And as for the young victim, Emilio Hoffman, one of the 3000 or so children shot to death in America a vigil was held in his honor with candles and prayers.  Services are scheduled for June 22.  Likely he wasn't targeted by the shooter, but was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.  According to an article:

each year in America,

He enjoyed science, history and played on the Reynolds Raiders junior varsity soccer team. Coaches tweeted that he was "a great soccer player and a great friend."

“Soccer was his whole life,” Jennifer Hoffman said.

After his death was announced Tuesday, there was an outpouring of support for him on social media.

“Emilio loved his friends, and his friends loved him. You couldn't be around Emilio without laughing,” his mother said Wednesday. “Anyone who has ever met Emilio laughed with him.”

That's another beautiful life extinguished by gun violence.

So, as life starts to return to some semblance of "normal" at Reynolds High School, with around 2000 students and their families traumatized, what are we to learn?

Since the Sandy Hook shooting, there have been 74 shootings at American schools and colleges, more than one shooting a week when classes are in session, including 39 at K-12 schools like this one.  The vast majority of these have been committed by students who accessed their parents' guns.  HERE and below is a map of those 74 shootings, and HERE is a listing of them.

Shootings at K-12 schools in red, at colleges/universities in purple. Everytown for Gun Safety/Mark Gongloff (source)

Clearly more needs to be done.  Better security at schools?  Sadly, lockdown drills at schools have become as common as fire drills, and armed security guards are becoming necessary.  But it certainly comes with risks, particularly in the hands of non-police.  I know of at least ten examples of where legally-armed security guards, police, and conceal carry holders have CAUSED incidents, including the injuring of children, on school grounds, despite the NRA line that schools should arm their teachers and staff.  None have ever stopped a shooting, but armed police (not citizens) have limited the shootings in a handful of cases (including this one and the Sandy Hook shooting).  Should students carry bulletproof blankets with them in the hallways, as one Oklahoma company attempts to convince us?  What about bulletproof backpacks and vests?  A round from an AR-15, like the one used in the Reynolds and Sandy Hook shootings, would go right through these.  Short of turning schools into prisons, there is no way to completely prevent a school shooting.

Making fortresses of our schools doesn't solve the problem, it merely treats the symptoms.  Instead, we need to do more to keep guns out of the hands of those who shouldn't have them in the first place, including children.  One way to do this is to mandate a state-wide (or, better yet, nation-wide) Child Access Protection (CAP) law.  One such bill is being re-introduced in Oregon.  In the 23 states that have implemented CAP laws, accidental and suicide shootings among children, teens, and even adults have dramatically decreased, sometimes by as much as 50%!  See statistics on CAP laws HERE.

And let's not forget that this is just one of the many shootings that happen each week in Oregon, which are dutifully recorded at the Oregon Shootings Facebook page. 

Lawmakers weighed in.  Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber said in a statement, "Today Oregon hurts as we try to make sense of a senseless act of violence."  But other than offering his thoughts and prayers, there was no call for action.  President Obama was more straightforward, stating, "My biggest frustration so far is the fact that this society has not been willing to take some basic steps to keep guns out of the hands of people who can do just unbelievable damage,” and, in response to the insanely high number of shootings in America, "We should be ashamed of that. There’s no place else like this."

And what did the Oregon gun lobby group, Oregon Firearms Federation, have to say about the school shooting?  Nothing, of course.  The deaths of innocents are inconvenient for their "guns everywhere" agenda.  They decided instead to release a statement about fears of a ban on lead ammunition.  Real thoughtful.

I'll leave this post with the words of one of the Reynolds High School teachers, Seth Needler, who experienced the fear of huddling in a dark classroom with his students during the lockdown, hearing distant gunfire and wondering if the shooter would walk into his room.  Having survived the experience, does he feel like arming himself and his coworkers?  Far from it.  An excerpt from his Facebook post:

I don’t blame this on a mentally unhinged youth, although that might be what it was, or on lax security, or even on society’s general decline. This was a case, like all the other recent school shootings, of gun violence due to lax gun regulation, and the proliferation of military assault weapons in the hands of everyday citizens.

I’m sick and tired of hearing gun enthusiasts claim that any kind of gun regulation is an attack on the second amendment, or that the solution to gun violence is more guns. I completely fail to understand how one organization, which is the lobbying arm of one industry, can control every politician in Congress to the extent of preventing any action at all on gun control, even after polls show that 90% of Americans are in favor of it.

But every time another shooting happens, and undoubtedly this will be no exception, people (including me and my family and friends) sigh, groan, bemoan the incident, talk about how awful it is, criticize the NRA and its lopsided influence, and then do…nothing. The only constituency that responds with any energy to incidents of gun violence is gun enthusiasts, who declare that it just provides more proof of their hypothesis that schools need to be staffed with U.S. Marshalls and teachers need to be armed and carry loaded weapons. Rather than stricter gun regulation, we get weakening of the existing regulation, and states literally pushing each other out of the way to be the most liberal when it comes to who can carry weapons into how many different venues, including churches, schools and even bars. Everybody laughs about it on late night TV, and then goes back to their business.

He goes on to suggest a number of commonsense gun regulations and then finishes with a call to action:

I can’t sit around anymore and do nothing. I encourage anyone reading this to take action also. Politicians say all the time that they get far more calls from their pro-gun constituents than the other 90% of us. Nothing will change without a massive, concerted uprising from us, the people. .... 

Isn’t it time to put the NRA in its place? If not now, when?

UPDATE (6/15/14): The family of the shooter, Jared Padgett, released a statement apologizing for the actions of their son, saying that they are "horrified and distaught" and that they tried to instill good values in him.  They said nothing about how the way their guns were stored or took any responsibility for it.

ADDENDUM (6/16/14):  A related blog post from another blogger, HERE and HERE.

UPDATE (6/18/14):  Last night, a vigil was held for the victim, Emilio Hoffman. Hundreds showed up to participate, including the family of the shooter.

UPDATE (6/19/14):  According to newly-released police information, the shooter got the weapons and a duffel bag used to carry them from his brother's room, who lived with him.  The report doesn't describe any "security measures" that were overcome by the shooter to get the guns.  There were also other guns and weapons found in the suspect's home.  The article also has additional details about the moment-to-moment of the shooting:

When detectives spoke with Padgett’s brother, they learned that he owns the weapons detectives later found at the school. The weapons, police said, were stored in Padgett’s older brother’s room, and that the two shared a room, the affidavit states. 

On the day of the shooting, Padgett’s older brother went to the Wood Village Fred Meyer, which is where students were taken by bus after being evacuated, the affidavit states. “He was unable to locate his brother,” the affidavit states. 

Padgett’s older brother went home “and saw that his rifle was not in the bedroom where he left it,” and could not explain where it had gone, the affidavit states. Detectives showed Padgett’s older brother a photo of the green bag and confirmed that it was in fact his bag that was issued to him as part of the United States Army Reserve program, the affidavit states.

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Man tried to "demystify" guns for his children, but his 3-year old son killed 6-year old daughter

(This is a cross-post with a posting at Kid Shootings blog)


Back in March, we reported on a shooting in Marysville, Washington, where a 3-year old boy was able to get out of his car seat, climb into the front seat, and access his father's loaded .38-caliber revolver while his parents were out of the family van.  The boy then shot his 7-year old sister, Jenna Carlile, in the abdomen, killing her.

The father, a gun owner and conceal carry permit holder, Derek Carlile, is now on trial.  

A police officer, Derek had thought himself "a stickler for safety" by locking his guns in a safe and "demystifying" guns to his kids by buying them toy guns, shooting BB guns with them, and teaching them how guns work.  The faulty logic here is that by "demystifying" guns to children through frequent exposure, it will keep them from being curious and handling the guns inappropriately.

It's an excuse I've heard many, many times from the gun guys when I extol the virtues and statistically-safer value of locking up guns around children or not having guns at all around them.  Though locking guns is important, it is better not to have guns around children at all.  Even the best-behaved children, including his son, are naturally curious and impetuous, with fatal consequences.

Statistics show that children are often able to access guns, despite the best training and strategies employed by their parents.

From an article:

The shooting of 7-year-old Jenna Carlile was a tragedy, but also a foreseeable consequence of the Camano Island man leaving his loaded .38-caliber revolver in the van's cup holder, deputy prosecutor Lisa Paul said. 

Evidence will show the off-duty officer made a series of unsafe choices March 10 in handling the weapon and as a result placed his children at risk, Paul told jurors.

Carlile accepts fault for his role in the shooting and "it's something he wishes he could change, but he can't," Seattle defense attorney David Allen said. 

Still, he urged jurors to keep an open mind and let the evidence guide their decision.
"This was a terrible, tragic accident but it wasn't a crime," Allen said. 

Carlile has worked as a patrol officer in Marysville for about three years. Allen described him as a stickler for gun safety, and somebody who has made a habit of locking up his firearms in a 600-pound safe at his home when he isn't carrying them for his job.

In keeping with his training, the officer had taken steps to "demystify" firearms for his children, teaching them how they work as part of a strategy aimed at encouraging safety, Allen said.

Testimony will show that Carlile provided his son with toy guns and on at least one occasion helped his 3-year-old shoot a BB gun, Paul said.

The boy was fascinated with his father's firearms, and at times would try to get into the safe in an attempt to play with them, she said.

Every gun in the hands of a child must first pass through the hands of an adult.

The Endless Cycle of School Shootings -- Let's Do Something About It!

It's been one week since the school shooting in Chardon, Ohio.  So where are we on the endless cycle of school shootings?  Chardon has now buried the three boys who were killed.  The talking continues in some circles, but the media has pretty much dropped the story outside of Ohio. 

Will there actually be action to prevent another Chardon shooting?  Or will we eventually forget it, as a nation?

Will there be serious consideration by the Ohio legislature to enact Child Access Protection laws to require gun owners to store their guns safely? 

Will parents and other family members realize that it's a bad idea to keep guns in the homes of at-risk children?

Will friends and relatives pay any more attention to the warning signs, like ominous Facebook or Twitter postings, radical and negative changes in behavior, or violent talk?

Or will we just shake our heads, blame the shooting on one child or his guardians, and go on about our lives without making changes that make it harder for disturbed children to get their hands on the family gun?

Understanding what makes troubled children act violently, and intervening before a tragedy can happen, is incredibly important.  But we must also take steps to minimize the chances in other ways, such as by removing the tools with which they can do harm.  A gun isn't just a lump of metal, it's a lethal weapon that even a four-year old can manipulate and cause to fire.

As Dennis Henigan wrote in his most recent blog posting at Huffington Post (I added the bolding):

Inevitably, the question on most people's minds is "Why?" What possibly could have caused 17-year-old T.J. Lane to turn a gun on his fellow students, killing three and wounding two more? There is talk of bullying. Of an abusive father. After all, he was attending a school for kids who have had trouble in traditional schools.

The "Why?" question is certainly important. If we are ever able to offer meaningful help to troubled kids, we must better understand the factors that cause teens to be so alienated and enraged that they would engage in violence. But the dominant focus on "Why?" often obscures the nature of the problem posed by tragedies like Chardon.

Let's face it. Chardon happened not because an Ohio teenager was so troubled that he became violent. Chardon happened because a troubled, violent Ohio teenager was able to get access to a gun.

Remove the gun from the equation and there may have been a violent incident involving T.J. Lane. But it is doubtful that three young people would have died and two been seriously injured. The nature and scope of the Chardon tragedy was determined by the nature and lethality of the weapon. It's not just a question of "Why?" It's also a question of "How?"

Pro-gun extremists like to rehash the old mantra, "Guns don't kill people, people kill people."  It's their way of dodging the issue of easy access to the weapons they hold so dear.  Guns have as their main purpose, as a goal of their design, the ability to kill quickly and efficiently.  Just aim and twitch your finger. 

Henigen continues:

It's not just the mass killings where the gun makes the difference. In general, assaults with guns are 23 times more deadly than assaults with other weapons or bodily force. Suicide attempts with guns are far more likely to result in death than attempts using other means. Accidents with guns are more deadly than accidents with other dangerous objects.

While we are trying to figure out how a young heart could become so hardened that it would lead to an act of unspeakable violence, can we not also have sensible policies to prevent hardened and violent kids from getting access to guns? I have no doubt the gun lobby welcomes our obsession with the "Why?" question. It deflects attention from the deadly role of the guns.

Yes, this teen shooter needs to be held accountable for his actions, but so too must all those adults who allowed the weapon to fall into his hands:  his guardians, who failed to secure the weapon and ammo in the house with an at-risk teen; the Ohio legislators who failed to pass a Child Access Prevention law; and the people of Ohio and America who are willing to put up with tragedies like this one without calling for reform.

As we say over at the Kid Shootings blog:  "Every gun in the hands of a child must first pass through the hands of an adult."

When will the next horrible school shooting happen? 

When will we demand changes to keep it from happening again?  Or, rather....

When will YOU demand changes to keep it from happening again?

"Children do have a way of discovering things...."

I just came back from a very nice two-day vacation, camping with friends and family at the Oregon coast.

Upon my return, though, I am once again reminded of the dangers of guns to children.  I found this recent news item of a 10-year old who was visiting the home of his 12-year old friend.  The boys entered the bedroom of the 12-year old's parents where they picked up the loaded and unlocked gun that his parents kept bedside "for security purposes."  After being handed the 9mm handgun, the 10-year old then accidently shot his friend through the chest.  The boy was flown to the hospital, still alive.

“Children do have a way of discovering things and we at the sheriff’s office would encourage all parents with firearms to make their firearms as safe as practical,” Undersheriff Vic Watson said in a written statement.

You don't say?  Apparently other guns were locked in a safe, but the parents neglected the fact that ALL children are curious and impetuous to at least some extent, and even one unlocked and loaded gun in the home is too many when children are around.  In my opinion, these parents should have all of their guns forcefully removed and be prohibited to purchase another.

It's interesting to note the opinion of one commenter to the article linked above.  Says "Mikki":   

"this is just stupid! if you have guns in your house make damn sure your kids know gun safety and that they are not toys! My 7 yr old and 3 yr old BOTH know that they ARE NOT TO TOUCH the guns unless it with mom and dad, but they do know the things guns do to living animals and people... GUN SAFETY PEOPLE!"

My son and daughter are 7 and 6.  If I only had a dollar for all the times they did things that I had lectured them not to do!   I hope "Mikki" doesn't learn the hard way the same lesson learned by the parents of the child in the article.  Don't you think the parents gave that talk to their son?  Don't you think the son had exposure to guns before this point?  I imagine so, on both points.

Among gun-owning parents who reported that their children had never handled their firearms at home, 22% of the children, questioned separately, said that they had.  But even keeping them locked up isn't a solution.  When household guns are kept locked up, youths typically know where the key is kept, the combination, or are able to break into the gun cabinet.

Every day in America at least one child finds a weapon and kills themselves or others.  Accidents, suicides, or murder, leaving a loaded gun in a home with a child is a free pass for tragic consequences.  If only the parents of the 10-year old had ASKED about guns in the home beforehand.  If only the state had Child Access Prevention laws in place, demanding safe storage of guns, which have been shown to reduce fatalities of adults as well as children.  But it's too late, now, for this tragedy.  Hopefully the boy is recovering okay.

Here is a tune I heard a few days ago on this very subject:  "Pumped Up Kicks" by Foster the People.  Catchy tune (click on the video to hear it), but read the lyrics:

 http://lybio.net/foster-the-people-pumped-up-kicks/indie/

And while I'm on the subject, let me also give this comment:  our pro-gun culture glorifies firearms to children, so it's little wonder these boys were drawn to handle the gun.  For a "blast" from the past, check out this TV commercial from the 60's:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMqd5EQXD-g&feature=related

My Article On The ASK Campaign Was Published

Yesterday was a day of highs and lows.

It started out great.  I found out an op-ed article of mine was published in this month's issue of Metro-Parent Magazine, a Portland, Oregon family magazine.  The article features the ASK Campaign, the need for safe storage of guns around children, and a quick introduction for the need for Child Access Prevention laws.  Here is a link to the issue; see page 28 for my article:  http://www.metro-parent.com/issues/june11/june11.pdf

June 18 is National ASK Day.  The ASK campaign advocates that parents ask about guns and their storage wherever their children play, such as at a friend's house.  For more on the ASK campaign, please see my PREVIOUS POST, or visit the originator of the program, PAX (www.paxusa.org).

It is all too common, I'm sorry to say, that tragedies happen due to ready access of unlocked and loaded weapons by children.  Just last week, for instance, a 2-yo boy shot and killed his 6-yo sister after finding a loaded semi-automatic handgun in his father's bedroom.  When police responded and searched the home, they found an amazing 53 guns in the home.  Five children, between the ages of 2 and 15, lived in the home.  What would the father have said before the shooting, I wonder?  Would he have claimed his children knew not to touch the guns without his supervision?  That they were stored safe enough?

I spent the day outside, enjoying the (finally!) warm weather here in Oregon and watching my 5- and 6-yo kids play on their Slip-N-Slide and ride bikes.  I'm glad I don't have to worry about them accessing guns in our home, or the homes of the friends we visit.

Yesterday ended on a sad note, though.  Around 6:30, a 19-yo young man was shot twice outside a local indoor putting range and arcade, called Putters.  He was shot by another young man, thought to be 18 years old.  The victim was out in the parking lot listening to music with relatives when the assailant approached and started shooting.  The victim was rushed to the hospital and is expected to survive.  Though it is legal in Oregon for someone 18 or older to possess a handgun or to purchase a handgun privately, it is illegal for them to be sold a handgun from a licensed seller (until they are 21).  So where did the youth get his weapon?  Currently he is on the run.  This is the age demographic most at risk for gun violence.

Remember, every gun in the hands of a child first passed through the hands of an adult.

"Guns In Our Lives" Interview on OPB -- Part II

Last Tuesday, on Oregon Public Broadcasting's radio's "Think Out Loud" program, host Emily Harris interviewed Penny Okamoto, executive director of Ceasefire Oregon, an organization working to prevent gun violence, and Kevin Starrett, president of the Oregon Firearms Federation, a hard-line pro-gun organization.

The link to the episode's home page:  http://www.opb.org/thinkoutloud/shows/reality-guns/.  There you can listen to the entire episode as well as download the .mp3 file of it.

In my last post, I examined roughly the first half of the show and interview, with contrasting opinions on how to view a recent accidental shooting of a child and comparisons between death by car vs. death by guns.  What follows is a review of the second half....

Next the show took a call from a caller named Heather, from Oregon City (the same city where the accidental shooting had been the week before).  Heather described how her two boys had grown up around their father's guns, had been in Boy Scouts and learned gun safety, and had family friends in law enforcement who had guns and shown the boys safety training.  Even so, after an incident when Heather's 7-year-old son had found a gun under a friend's parents' bed, and the lack of concern or compassion by those parents when confronted, she asked her husband to remove guns from their own home.  She felt her sons were simply too curious and impulsive, just like, well, nearly all children are.  They didn't even allow squirt guns.

Yet, despite all of her precautions, Heather's sons had been in the attic and found an unlocked gun there, tucked away and forgotten.  Her 15-year-old said to his younger brother, "See, the safety's on.  Click, click!" then he pointed the gun at his brother and pulled the trigger, thinking it was unloaded.  The gun fired, and the younger boy was shot and injured (eventually making a full recovery).  Heather admitted that it was her and her husband's own fault for not thinking to search the attic and took responsibility for the accident.  She added that, though some blame lay on the 15 year old, children of that age are not fully developed and mature enough to resist their impulses.

(Around 30% of homes with children also have firearms.  40% of those keep the guns unlocked, a quarter of which are kept loaded [ LINK].  In 2007 alone, at least 613 children died from accidental shootings [LINK].)

When asked for their reaction to the caller's story, the responses from Okamoto and Starrett once again illustrated a major difference between the two sides:

Okamoto's response:  "As a gun owner you need to be prepared to be responsible.  When you purchase that weapon, you need to be prepared to say, 'Am I willing to bring this into my house where someone, my son, my daughter, could accidently shoot himself, shoot herself.'"  "Some 60% of gun deaths are suicides.  That gun owner needs to think about the reasons for having that gun and be prepared to take responsibility.  Heather's case was different because they didn't even know there was a weapon in the attic."  She later added, "Ceasefire teaches children gun safety in what to do when they find a weapon."

Starrett's response:  "This was a situation where there was a terrible shooting that took place because, however well-trained these people felt they had trained their children, it wasn't sufficient.  But it is far easier to gun-proof your children than to child-proof your guns." (I disagree with that statement!)  "My children grew up in a house with a firearms instructor, and wouldn't in a million years dream of pointing a gun at another person.  You have to take into account the maturity and the ability of each child involved."  When the host pointed out that the caller questioned the maturity of a 15-year-old, Starrett added, "Well, you know, I have an 11 year-old who would never point a gun at another person.  So, yeah, obviously every child is different.  Kids go through extensive driver's ed and still go out and get killed in crashes because they have their friends in the car and they drive too fast and they exercise poor judgment.  That is a responsibility of the parent to inculcate their children with the best information they can."

The contrasting responses are pretty typical of the two sides, I feel.  Like Starrett, most pro-gun folks I've talked to or exchanged comments with on this blog use the "not my child" response.  Parents are rarely willing to believe that they could have failed to instill sound judgment in their children -- until it's too late.  I agree that children differ in maturity and impulsivity, but even the most responsible child will have moments of impulsive behavior, and you can't very well control the actions of their friends.  I'm thinking the caller, Heather, probably would have used the "not my child" excuse about her sons prior to their own accident, too.

Okamoto's response, however, suggests that all gun owners should be prepared for the worst scenario and take responsibility for it.  Guns and children don't mix. 

[Among gun-owning parents who reported that their children had never handled their firearms at home, 22% of the children, questioned separately, said that they had.  When household guns are kept locked up, youths typically know where the key is kept, the combination, or are able to break into the gun cabinet.]

The host, Emily Harris, next asked Okamoto and Starrett, "Do you share some common ground on who shouldn't have a gun, like people who have mental illnesses perhaps, or experiencing them at moment, or people who have felony backgrounds?"

Starrett:  "I certainly think that anyone who is pre-disposed to acting violently or is not mentally competent should not have a gun.  I think the difference is that I believe that many of the proposed solutions are fantasy.  And in fact, I think in many cases are counter-productive.  Trish [the Oregon State Police ID Services representative from earlier in the broadcast] was discussing the mental health changes that were made in 2009.  Their records are frequently faulty and people who are entitled to guns are denied or delayed."  He went on to complain of false-positives, where law-abiding people are confused as criminals and have to defend themselves at their own cost to qualify for gun purchase. 

When asked by Emily about "false-positives", Trish indicated that she is "not aware of that being a problem."

Okamoto's response about common ground:  "I have no idea.  I know we shouldn't have felons with guns, or people with restraining orders, or people who have been adjudicated mentally ill.  One of the problems we do have, however, is that when people go to purchase a weapon they go to a federally-licensed firearms dealer, they go to a gun show, they have to have a background check.  But if you're a felon, a drug user, any of these prohibited classes, you don't have to go to a federally-licensed dealer, you can just go to anyone." 

Emily asked, "Is that the root of the movement to ban guns?  How do you handle that problem?"

Okamoto replied, "First, we would ban assault weapons, not guns in general.... But this has nothing to do with banning guns.  It has to do with keeping an eye on who has access to weapons.  Who's getting these weapons?  How are the children getting weapons?  You have to remember, every time a child has a weapon ... it's gone through the hands of an adult first.  And it's so easy to get weapons in Oregon."

It's interesting to note the difference in the two responses.  Both agree that violent people and the mentally ill should not have guns.  The difference is that Starrett, and organizations like OFF and the NRA, offer no solutions to do anything about it.  Okamoto and organizations like Ceasefire Oregon and the Brady Campaign to Reduce Gun Violence at least offer real solutions, like expanding background checks, increasing funding to update databases with mental health records for those background checks, and child access prevention laws, all of which are actively opposed by the pro-gun side.

Finally, when asked what legislation they would like to see, Starrett replied, "Top priority: to clean up the pistol license system so that people aren't being denied and that people from other states would be welcome here as well [regarding conceal carry permits from out of state]." 

Okamoto replied, "Universal background checks and prevention of access by minors."