On a Saturday morning in late September, Wes Gilkey and more than 10 other Ohio University Second Amendment Club members took their guns, unpacked them, loaded them with bullets and fired rounds across a grassy range in Marietta.
Those recreational and competitive shooters only fired when the range was “hot” and made sure no one was in front of the shooting guns.
The Second Amendment Club, a group dedicated to educating people on the Constitution’s guarantee of “the right of the people to keep and bear arms” acted carefully, and the only things shot that morning were field targets.
Outside gun ranges, metal targets are not the only thing at risk from gunfire.
There were 53,369 total incidents of death, injury or threat involving guns in America in 2015, according to Gun Violence Archive. Three hundred twenty-two of those incidents were mass shootings, up from 277 in 2014.
Gun Violence Archive, an independent data collection and research group, defines a mass shooting as a shooting in which four or more people are shot or killed in a single incident.
“It says something when we’re scrolling on social media or when somebody mentions there’s a mass shooting, and we don’t blink,” Ashley Fishwick, a sophomore studying English pre-law and political science, said. “We just kind of go with it now.”
The topics of gun violence and gun rights have lead to conversations across the country about the state of firearm regulation from law formation to enforcement, and regardless of their political opinions, many people feel strongly about firearms.
Guns in Politics
Politicians running for election in November have different ideas on how to best handle gun policy in the U.S.
“Emotionally, just the number of people that are losing their lives due to gun violence makes me feel that we as a nation needs to address this,” Sarah Grace, a Democrat running for the 94th District seat in the Ohio House of Representatives, said. “I don't think it’s a one-solution problem.”
Grace said one important step to reduce gun violence is to keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers because many shooters target a current or former intimate partner. She also said she is in favor of regulating high-capacity magazines and expanding background checks.
Jay Edwards, Grace’s Republican opponent for the 94th District seat, said in an email he learned how to shoot and respect guns when he was young, and added he supports the state’s concealed carry laws.
According to the Ohio Revised Code, an individual cannot carry any concealed weapon other than a handgun. In order to apply for a concealed carry license, the individual needs to prove their competency. One way to do that is to complete a firearms safety course.
Edwards added that current gun laws should be enforced, and he does not agree that taking away gun access to people following the laws will solve gun violence.
At the national level, the presidential candidates follow a similar partisan divide.
“We may have our disagreements about gun safety regulations, but we should all be able to agree on a few essential things,” Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said after 49 people were killed in June by an armed gunman at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. “If the FBI is watching you for a suspected terrorist link, you shouldn’t be able to just go buy a gun with no questions asked. And you shouldn’t be able to exploit loopholes and evade criminal background checks by buying online or at a gun show.”
Expanding background checks, limiting the gun industry’s legal protections and supporting laws that stop people with mental illnesses or abusive people from obtaining firearms are part of Clinton’s platform detailed on her campaign website as a way to prevent gun violence.
Republican candidate Donald Trump said Clinton is the “most anti-gun, anti-Second Amendment candidate ever to run for office," during the National Rifle Association’s national convention in May.
At the NRA’s convention, he added that voting for him was the “only way to save our Second Amendment,” but Trump has been criticized for his changing views on gun control. In his book published in 2000, The America We Deserve, Trump said he supports a ban on assault weapons and a longer waiting period to purchase firearms, but he said during a primary debate in March he no longer supports the ban.
Policing Firearms
Gun violence is often looked at on a national scale, but many gun laws are made at a state level and enforced at the local level.
“We don’t have a lot of gun violence,” Athens Police Department Chief Tom Pyle said. “We have it. I’m not saying we’re free of it, but we don’t have it on the scale of other communities.”
SafeWise, a home security provider, identified the City of Athens in 2016 as the 45th safest city in Ohio based off of FBI crime report statistics and population data.
When looking at Athens County, Rodney Smith, the Athens County Sheriff, said gun use is rare, but the threat of gun use is frequent.
“When somebody does basically brandish a weapon or threaten someone, I mean we're going to file charges and probably arrest them,” he said. “Unless it’s in a self-defense situation, (the use of firearms are) just a danger to the community.”
Someone having a gun does not necessarily mean that person is safe from a threat, Pyle said. Even when someone has a gun and the expertise to use it, they may not be willing to use it in a combat situation.
“Having a gun does not make you any safer any more than having a violin makes you a concert violinist,” APD officer David Malawista said. “There’s a whole set of skills that comes along with it.”
The sheriff’s office gives out an average of about 550 concealed carry licenses, and there are rarely any issues with the people given permits, Smith said. He added maybe twice a year, he will take a concealed carry license away from a person who has been arrested or has held or used a gun while intoxicated.
Even with Athens’ reputation as a safe city according to SafeWise, Pyle said APD is trained “pretty much every year” in situations involving firearms. In an active shooter situation, for example, officers are trained to confront a situation head on.
“We have three officers working day shift right now, and if they respond to an active shooter, all of them are going to run to where the gunfire is going off and engage in a combat situation until it’s resolved,” Pyle said.
Carrying Conversations
On college campuses in Ohio, if someone is actively shooting, no one other than law enforcement can use a firearm in the situation due to campus carry laws in the state.
Even people with a concealed carry license are prohibited from carrying a firearm on the property of an institution of higher education, private or public, according to Ohio Revised Code.
“If something happened to my girlfriend here on campus ... and she was hurt or she was killed, and I knew she could have been helped … wouldn’t that just tear your heart out?” Gilkey said. “My girlfriend is certified in the state of Ohio to teach (the proper usage of handguns). ... She knows what she’s doing.”
Gilkey, a fifth-year senior studying criminology and Russian, added that he thinks there is some gun control that is needed, but some regulations go too far when certain firearms are banned without “any real reason for consideration.” He referenced certain states, such as New York, Massachusetts and Connecticut, that limit the use of magazines, which is a device for storing and feeding ammunition within or attached to a gun, that can fire over 10 rounds.
“I just think it’s crazy because of the way they ban firearms,” Gilkey said.
Although he said he understands where people are coming from emotionally when passing laws following school shootings, he thinks there is little factual basis for laws banning particular guns.
For other OU students, more restrictive firearm regulation is looked at as the best way to limit gun violence.
Fishwick, a member of OU College Democrats, self-identifies as a “very strong advocate” for gun control.
“Common sense” gun reform should be put into place, Fishwick said, including mandating background checks at gun shows and online. She also does not think individuals on the no-fly list should be able to access guns.
Especially after mass shootings this past summer, such as the shooting at the Pulse nightclub, she said working to reform gun laws is not on the forefront of people's minds like it should be.
“I feel like I’ve spoken out for so long about gun reform," Fishwick said. "I just feel like we’re so desensitized to it that we need to focus on other issues right now because nothing is getting through.”
Gilkey said millions of gun owners should not be “punished” by certain regulations if the owners do not cause harm with their weapons.
“You have to find a form of gun control that limits the ability of bad people to do harm without restricting the rights of the good people,” Gilkey said. “That’s the secret question. That’s the secret key.”
