PART ONE IN A CONTINUING SERIES ON THE IMPACT OF GUNS
The debate on gun control versus gun rights can easily devolve into dehumanizing faceoffs. We sought to gain some perspective from four Virginians who are invested in how the newly reshaped state legislature charts the path ahead, asking each person about their life experiences, their beliefs and the reasoning informing their particular advocacy.
Philip Van Cleave
Midlothian, president of Virginia Citizens Defense League
I’ve been a gun owner since I was about 16. And when I turned 21, I volunteered to be a deputy sheriff in Texas. For six years, I served as a deputy there, riding in patrol cars every week. So I could see firsthand guns saving lives. We would go somewhere, and somebody would have used a gun to scare off somebody who was trying to attack them.
Crime — especially murders — has been dropping for a decade now. I think that the media is putting a magnifying glass over a gnat to make it look like a dinosaur. Most [homicides] are drug dealers killing other drug dealers, one criminal killing another. If the issue we’re trying to solve is crime, gun control is not the answer. The answer is much more complicated. Lack of respect for life is one of the key issues that goes back to things like religion, schools teaching values, which they don’t do much anymore. You’re kind of on your own — children, they’re feral. Parents are just not, you know, socializing them properly.
[Gun-control advocates] think that if you, say, take away people’s guns or if you put up a “no guns” sign, that makes you safe — that somehow, now criminals are going to obey that sign, when they don’t obey anything else. So that’s where we really diverge greatly. Their view of what will work only restricts my rights. It keeps me from carrying [a firearm] and protecting myself, because I obey laws.
My experience with the other side is they don’t negotiate in good faith. At the end of the day, this is a right. We don’t have the ability to be negotiating that away with anybody.
[In the General Assembly session,] we’re going to get more involved in local government, making sure that they don’t push any gun control. We’re going to push for [Second Amendment] sanctuary localities, where they’ll say unconstitutional gun laws are not something that will be enforced.
Marko Galbreath
Lynchburg, owner of T4Tactics
I am a retired police officer from Daytona Beach, [Florida], and I have a business, T4Tactics, in Lynchburg, and I travel the country teaching active-shooter response training. And then I teach firearm-safety classes.
I was a homicide detective for a while. I’ve seen a lot of gun violence, but my perspective is: I am a safe and responsible gun owner, as many people are, and I don’t think our rights should be infringed because some other people have done wrong with firearms.
I don’t think we’re having an epidemic at all. If you look at opioids or alcohol-related incidents or domestic violence, it’s the same or worse. One of the main problems is people don’t understand what causes violence. What the politicians need to do to get the facts is sit down with some cops that are actually on the street — and not just commanders and not just chiefs, but the line officers and the homicide investigators — and find out the truth about gun violence.
Some people think you can buy an AR-15 online. You can, technically, but it has to be shipped to a federal firearms-licensed dealer. You have to pay them a fee for that, and [you] still have to do a background check, which is important. I do believe in background checks — not only for criminal violations but for mental [health] issues as well. That’s a big misconception, to think you can just go out and buy a gun. It’s not that easy, and I’m glad it’s not that easy. You need to be vetted for it.
The biggest value [of gun ownership] is my personal protection and the personal protection of my family. The last thing I want to do is shoot somebody.
I respect people’s opinions that don’t like guns — I’m fine with that. And if they’re anti-Second Amendment, I’m fine with that. Some people have been involved in firearm accidents and have had a personal tragedy, I get that. But I think that we can sit down and come to an agreement where we’re not taking firearms, but we are restricting access to people that don’t need to have them.
Lori Haas
Richmond, senior director of advocacy for the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence
My daughter, Emily, then age 19, was shot and injured at Virginia Tech on the morning of April 16, 2007, and our family was rocked in an indescribable way by that tragedy. The pain and suffering that we witnessed after that tragedy compels me to do everything I can to mitigate gun violence.
There were 39,773 gun deaths in America [in 2017], according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. When I started my work, that number was right around 32,000. We have a moral obligation to save lives, and when you have data and evidence that points in the direction on how to do that, I find it unacceptable to do anything less.
The other side — as I’ve heard many, many, many times — is very concerned with law-abiding gun owners being the target of the gun-violence-prevention movement. Nothing could be further from the truth. My organization cares about and works on policy to prevent firearm suicide, firearm homicide, accidents [and] unintentional shootings using the best evidence and an equitable lens. It does not violate the Second Amendment to regulate access to firearms. Gun owners, in polling, support measures to prohibit guns from domestic abusers, felons, persons at risk of self-harm, persons at risk of harm to others. There is just so much common ground and so many people in the middle.
We have a very keen focus on all the legislation that’s before us, trying to make certain that law enforcement has the resources they will need to implement these laws; making sure that our legislators have their questions answered; and contributing to the education of the public. We know that it’s a combination of community programs, policies and interventions that have to work in concert with each other to begin to impact the public health epidemic of gun violence across the commonwealth.
Leanne Fox
Crozet, leader of a Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America branch
[When I was] growing up, my dad owned numerous guns. Both of my parents are Army veterans. I grew up on a nonworking ranch, and so I was around guns. On a ranch, and in the Army, a gun is a tool. It wasn’t political. It was just a part of day-to-day life. I learned to shoot when I was 11, and I remember it was one of the best experiences of my childhood.
Now I’m a gun owner myself. What brought me to advocacy was the Newtown [Connecticut] shootings. I grew up well within gun culture. But I was a new mom in December of 2012, and I watched the aftermath of that shooting unfold with horror. It impacted me so profoundly that I kind of fell down a rabbit hole, reading everything I could about that shooting.
I was appalled that our legislators did nothing. But one other thing that I remember very clearly is the NRA was silent after that shooting. It felt like a sucker punch, because I felt like the NRA was an organization that was supposed to responsibly represent the interests of gun owners, including safety. So that was the first time that I felt a separation from my background.
I was in Charlottesville at the time, and there was really no way to be a part of change at that point. There was no Moms Demand Action. So I just remained engaged on this issue, and as the years went by, I felt more and more strongly that we needed just absolutely basic, common-sense gun-safety laws.
In my opinion, the fundamental issue here is that everyone wants to live in a safe community, and everyone wants their children to be safe. And gun safety is a part of public safety. There’s so much common ground, and this is where I think it’s really useful to be someone who people don’t expect to be aligned with one side. There’s just so much work to do, so much gun-safety work to do. People — when they talk to me — they expect something, and they find out that I’m a gun owner and that I really want reasonable, common-sense reform.
