The Last Gun (11 page)

The prospect of perturbed parents packing pistols at children's sports events understandably frightens other parents. “Everybody is worried about the safety of children,” a Salem, Virginia, detective said after the Akers assault rifle incident. “If I were a parent, I'd be nervous.”
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The
Memphis Commercial Appeal
called the Williams incident “an alarming wake-up call about what can happen when emotions explode and a handgun is handy.”
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In North Carolina, Carol Coulter, a member of the Ashe County Parks and Recreation Advisory Board, pointed out a classic problem with CCW vigilantism. “I've had ample opportunity to observe people in the stands at sporting events and it never ceases to amaze me how adults can act in such childish ways,” she said. “I fear that by having access to a concealed weapon, in a thoughtless moment of rage a gun will be pulled and in response to that, others with concealed weapons will also pull their guns and perhaps if someone didn't see who pulled the gun first then you've got people pointing guns and they don't even know who they should be pointing at.”
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Coulter's concern is far from academic. On Long Island, New York, a federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) agent was unintentionally
killed by a retired police officer who rushed up to the scene as the agent struggled with a robber outside a pharmacy. The retired officer shot the wrong man.
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A related danger is stray shots hitting innocent bystanders. In May 2012 in Houston, Texas, a store customer and CCW holder pulled out his gun and exchanged gunfire with two armed robbers. The would-be defender accidentally shot and killed a twenty-six-year-old store clerk.
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But not everyone agrees that kids and guns don't mix. “Gun rights” activists—with the help of the NRA, the gun lobby, and blinkered judges—have relentlessly pushed back the boundaries of common sense to ensure their “right” to bring their guns to their children's Pee Wee Football, Little League baseball, and soccer—not to mention public parks, bars, churches, and schools. “The speed at which guns laws are being relaxed is increasing,” said John Pierce, a co-founder of
OpenCarry.org
. “We're very happy about it.”
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An example of the kind of counterfactual wisdom propelling these victories can be found in the following harangue that enthusiasts of mixing guns, kids, and parks in Forsyth County, North Carolina, asked their supporters to send to officials who opposed lax gun-carry rules:

Free Americans have the God-given right to bear arms EVERYWHERE.

  
The evidence is clear: where these rights are restricted are [
sic
] dangerous.

  
Where have mass-murders occurred? Where have child abductions, rapes and murders most often occurred? Claiming no reason for citizens to be lawfully armed in parks is wrong. Every American has personal responsibility for self-defense and the defense of family.

  
Do you expect a 120 lb mother to defend herself and children against 250 lb criminals unarmed? If you believe that Forsyth County parks are immune to abductions/ rapes/murders you are mistaken. It is not a matter of if, but when.
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To the denizens of this dark universe, a gun is an amulet that magically transforms the bearer into a righteous and invulnerable defender of all that is good, right, and holy, not a human being carrying a lethal weapon who is full of the emotions and chemicals that drive rage, fright, depression, anger, revenge, and jealousy. In the real world, that “120 lb mother” is much more likely to be shot and killed by her “250 lb” husband or boyfriend than ever to use a gun to defend herself from a criminal stranger.
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Guns easily turn domestic violence into domestic homicide. A federal study on homicide among intimate partners found that female intimate partners are more likely to be murdered with a firearm than all other means combined, concluding that “the figures demonstrate the importance of reducing access to firearms in households affected by IPV [intimate partner violence]. ”
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The fact that a gun will more likely be used wrongly in a moment of rage, jealousy, depression, or mistaken perception than for some righteous purpose has been demonstrated from analysis of real-world data, collected decade after decade from the grim records of death and injury in America. Firearms are rarely used to kill criminals or stop crimes. Instead, they are all too often used to inflict harm on the very people they were intended to protect. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Reports, in 2009 there were only 261 justifiable homicides committed by private citizens. Of these, only 21 involved women killing men. Of those, only 13 involved firearms, with 10 of the 13 involving handguns.
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It is easier, and frankly more effective, for gun enthusiasts to spin fictional Fright Night tales than integrate such facts into their thinking. Supreme Court Justice Scalia pinned his statement on the utility of handguns in
Heller
largely to a familiar gun rights canard: “What if a burglar breaks into your home?” What Scalia did not write, and perhaps did not know, is that most household burglaries occur when no household member is in the home. A Justice Department study of household burglaries between 2003 and 2007 found that no one was home in 72.4 percent of
household burglaries.
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What's more, even when someone was at home and was a victim of violent crime, almost two thirds (65.1 percent) of the offenders were not strangers. Of those violent burglars who were not strangers, 31.1 percent were intimates or former intimates (girlfriends, boyfriends, or spouses), while 34 percent were either relatives or acquaintances of the victim.
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Another subject conspicuously absent from Justice Scalia's discussion is the danger that bullets fired from handguns present to one's innocent neighbors. According to a 2012 article in
Guns & Ammo
magazine, this risk of “overpenetration” is one that “has always been a concern when discussing the use of firearms in a dwelling.” The article warns that the results of “exhaustive studies about what pistol and shotgun projectiles do when fired indoors” are “very interesting (and not in a good way).” Contrary to the uninformed belief of many gun enthusiasts that overpenetration is not an issue with handguns, “Such is not the case. Drywall sheets and hollow-core doors (which are what you'll find in the majority of homes and apartments in this country) offer almost no resistance to bullets. Unless brick or cinderblock was used somewhere in your construction, any pistol cartridge powerful enough to be thought of as suitable for self-defense is likely to fly completely through every wall in your abode.”
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The point here is neither to deny the reality of burglary nor to diminish its trauma. The point is rather to ask: what is the better defense against burglary, to bring a gun into the home or to better secure one's residence? This is the balance that the gun industry and its advocates never consider.

One of the more vociferous advocates of the right to carry handguns anytime, anywhere was Meleanie Hain. The mother of three children, Hain lived in Lebanon, Pennsylvania.
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If the seat of Lebanon County sounds familiar to the reader, it should. Lebanon is the town in which—on the morning the Supreme Court handed down the decision in
Heller
striking down the District of Columbia handgun law—Raymond Zegowitz shot to death his girlfriend Khrystina Bixa, then committed suicide.
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Meleanie Hain achieved a certain prominence as the “pistol-packin' soccer mama” and hero of the gun rights movement. Hain's firearms-rights flame flared up on September 11, 2008, when she wore a loaded Glock 26 semiautomatic pistol on her hip, openly displaying it at her five-year-old daughter's soccer game. Quite naturally, other parents were troubled. Controversy ensued. “What's the difference between a bulldog and a soccer mom?” a local newspaper writer scribbled. “In the case of Meleanie Hain, it's a loaded sidearm.”
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Glock calls Hain's gun of choice for four- to five-year-olds' soccer games its “Baby” Glock, a “triumphant advance . . . specially developed for concealed carry. . . previously a domain of 5-round snub nose revolvers.” The Austrian semiautomatic pistol maker boasts of the gun's “magazine capacity of 10 rounds as standard and [its] highly accurate firing characteristics.”
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Settled in 1723 by German farmers, Lebanon County is described by its government website as a place where “residential, commercial and industrial development” is going on amid “its pastoral landscape, attractive farms and outstanding dairy and pork products, especially Lebanon Bologna.”
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But the pastoral landscape of Lebanon's rolling Pennsylvania Dutch country was not reassuring to Hain. A vegetarian and self-described “pseudo devotee” of the Hare Krishna sect,
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she professed to have been haunted by fears for the safety of herself and her children. According to the
Philadelphia Inquirer
, Hain saw danger “lurking around every corner.”
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In most accounts, Hain described the source of her vague but ubiquitous fear as a near-fatal automobile accident, which the
Inquirer
reported “destroyed her sense of security and convinced her that the worst can happen.”
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According to a newspaper brief, in April 2006 a van driven by Hain collided with a pickup truck. Hain, her two-year-old child, the driver of the truck, and his passenger were all taken to the hospital. Four days after the accident, Hain was described as in “fair” condition.
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In another report by the
Patriot News
of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, however, Hain is
reported to have told a judge that she carried a gun “because her husband works in law enforcement.”
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Whatever the reason, Hain decided that a gun was the answer to her fears. “I thought, ‘What more can I do to ensure the safety of myself and my children,?” she told the
Inquirer
. “It's not a matter of being paranoid. People have smoke detectors and fire extinguishers in their homes. They're not paranoid; they're prepared.”
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“Being prepared” for Hain first meant getting a permit to carry her gun concealed on her person. But at some point Hain decided to go beyond discreetly carrying her gun. She started packing it on her hip, in plain view, everywhere she went. “I don't really need anything extra in the way of the gun if I'm going to have to pull it out and I'm holding a baby and trying to shuttle two or three other kids,” she said in a 2008 newspaper interview.
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Although Hain claimed she had worn the holstered gun openly without incident before, parents at Lebanon's Optimist Park on that September 11 noticed her wearing the gun and complained to Charlie Jones, a coach who was also the county's public defender.
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“More than one parent was upset,” Jones told the local newspaper.
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In another interview, he said that he told Hain, “Kids are more in danger of falling off a piece of playground equipment or getting hit by a car in the parking lot than anybody coming and doing anything where you need a gun to defend yourself.”
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The day after the incident, Hain got an e-mail from Nigel Foundling, director of the Lebanon soccer program. Foundling wrote that carrying guns to the games was against the soccer program's policy. “A responsible adult would realize that such behavior has no place at a soccer game,” Foundling wrote. He told Hain that if she persisted in packing heat, she would be banned from the games, and that he would tell police about the incident. Within a few days, Hain got a letter from county sheriff Mike DeLeo, who had been contacted by another child's parent. DeLeo revoked Hain's concealed-carry permit, based on his assessment
that her actions showed a lack of judgment.
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The revocation of Hain's permit had the odd result that if Hain wished to continue to go about armed, she could do it only with her gun in plain sight, just as she had been doing. Such “open carry” is legal in most of Pennsylvania.

Hain was not inclined to back down. Because the soccer games were played on public property, she asserted, the league did not have the power to curtail her right to bear arms. She also appealed Sheriff DeLeo's suspension of her concealed-carry permit. The battle lines were drawn. Within a month, Hain won her license back. In a courtroom packed with Hain's supporters, Judge Robert J. Eby ordered her license returned but questioned her common sense. “What is the purpose [at] an event where 5-year-olds are playing soccer?” he asked. “To make other people afraid of you? Fear doesn't belong at a kids' soccer game. For protection? I absolutely hope we don't feel we need to be protected at a 5-year-old soccer game. . . . What if everyone came packing, so you'd have a visibly armed force on both sides?”
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“There's no question we all have rights under the Second Amendment,” Judge Eby observed. “But with these rights come responsibilities. There are limitations on what rights you have, and there has to be a balancing . . . a balance between the rule of law and common sense.”
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The judge's lecture to Hain went on. “Society is replacing right versus wrong with legal versus illegal,” he said. “They are not the same thing. They never were and it is my hope they never will be. There are times when someone's conduct may be perfectly legal, but it is still wrong.”
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