By Dr. Bill Fowler
Mike was a trainer at a company I worked for in Carlsbad for 11 years. We weren't close personal friends, but it was a pretty small office and I knew him casually for the few years that we worked together. Whenever the subject of guns come up, and especially shooting ranges, I think of Mike. And even some other days as well.
Carlsbad approved the Conditional Use Permit (CUP) required for the shooting range that has been in the planning stages for some time. Our City Council unanimously voted for the CUP after sending it back to staff last Spring because the original framers of Carlsbad's zoning regulations never imagined that a shooting range would be needed in Carlsbad. Such a business would not have been permitted under the various rules for such things. The City Council approved the shooting range, presumably with the enthusiasm expressed by Mayor Pro-Tem Keith Blackburn.
“I want to lift the roadblocks to anybody who wants to open a gun range in this community,” the UT quoted Mr. Blackburn who will be up for re-election as a City Council member next November. The UT also quoted a resident who said "It befuddles me how somebody could be against this concept...It’s in everybody’s best interest that we have a range here."
Let me clear up this befuddlement in two words -- San Bernardino.
FBI's investigation showed that the Riverside Magnum Range was the locus of planning for the massacre that killed 14 Americans, as well as the location of a number of other terrorist plots as well. Thankfully they were never carried out. That business was also the place where the guns used in the massacre were illegally transferred from Marquez, the straw purchase buyer, to Farook the terrorist.
We don't want this same scenario in Carlsbad.
Now I believe it is up to the City Council to take action to prevent the massacre of Americans in that other Southern California city with a gun range -- Carlsbad.
I have a few ideas. First, let me point out that while owning a gun is a constitutional right, shooting firearms in Carlsbad's city limits is NOT. Carlsbad has a right to protect itself from the Farooks and Maliks of the world.
I believe that Carlsbad, by municipal code, should require anyone wanting to discharge firearms within Carlsbad's city limits to register with the Carlsbad Police Department. The police would then check the "No Fly List" of terrorists compiled and maintained by U.S. government's Terrorist Screening Center. Running their names by the FBI wouldn't hurt either.
I also think that anyone renting arms within Carlsbad should be subject to the same background check as those wishing to purchase guns.
And finally, and to my mind, most important, no one under the age of 18 should be allowed to shoot firearms in Carlsbad.
But wait! Wouldn't those regulations be immediately challenged by the NRA?
Absolutely!
Would they win? Maybe. But maybe not. Even though the NRA seems to be able to bully Congress out of establishing reasonable gun controls, it has not been totally successful in the courts.
Which brings me back to Mike. Mike took his 12 year old boy to an outdoor shooting range a few years after I worked with him. In a horribly tragic accident, Mike's boy accidentally discharged a rifle into Mike's chest. Mike died a short time later.
The burden that 12 year old boy was left with is unfathomable. He's an adult now, but I imagine it is something that he thinks about every single day of his life.
How can we, as a society, enable that kind of tragedy?
We don't let 12 year old children drive cars.
We don't let 12 year old children drink alcohol.
Why, then, do we let children shoot deadly weapons?
Just because a child has arms long enough to hold a rifle or fingers long enough to pull a trigger, are they really old enough or responsible enough to fire deadly weapons?
This is not about gun control, this is about protecting Carlsbad citizens from harm. The majority of Americans want to both open the dialogue and move towards legislative reform that will prevent tragedies. Carlsbad's City Council seems to be moving in the wrong direction.
If nothing else, let's save our children from the unimaginable tragedy of living the rest of their life with the knowledge that they killed another human being, even if accidentally.