News
Page 8
Street Roots • July 8-14, 2016
middle
ground
One w om an’s fe a r o f g u n s leads her
to pursue understanding between -
the politically charged extremes *
BY JANE SALISBURY
C O N T R IB U T IN G W R IT E R
When it comes to guns, there is a deep
urban-rural chasm in Oregon, each side
caricaturing the other. On the urban side,
there are the liberal Portlanders who could
not point to Douglas County on a map, and
think that Oregon’s four corners are
Astoria, Hood River, Bend and Newport; on
the rural side, the
angry, right-wing, sign-
"The greatest challenge of the day is: how
wavers of Roseburg
to bring about a revolution of the heart.
who loudly and crudely
denounced President
Obama when he
arrived to pay his
respects quietly to the
victims of the Umpqua
Community College
shootings last October.
a revolution which has to start
with each one of us."
But I believe that in
every Oregon county
Dorothy Day
and city, there are
men and women
across the political
spectrum who have guns in their closets
and garages, which they pack safely out
into the woods and fields in season, to hunt
for duck and pheasant, deer and elk, and
that they are reasonable, kind, non-violent
people who do not necessarily agree with
the extreme rants of Wayne LaPierre, the
executive director of the National Rifle
Association.
I write not as a gun owner or a hunter; I
am quite the opposite. I am afraid of guns,
and repelled by them, and the unending
gun violence in the United States. I’ve
never owned a gun, and can count on one
| ’
‘ *
hand the people I know who do. My father
grew up in Wyoming and learned very
young, when taken antelope hunting by my
grandfather, that he had no heart for killing
game animals. When I was growing up, we
had my grandfather’s old .22 up in the attic
with the luggage and camping gear and my
father let us shoot tin cans off fences out in
the sticks when we were kids. But that was
all: guns were for shooting cans, and
hunting was for other people. I come at
this with neither a love for hunting nor the
killing power of guns, but only a desire to
understand the wide range of opinion that
surrounds guns and gun culture.
We can wish for laws such as those in
England, which regulate private ownership
of guns very strictly. We can point to
examples such as Australia, where gun
control has made a positive difference in
murder rates. There is progress, even
here, in increments, state by state, with
new background check laws and safety
requirements. But it seems unlikely that
there is much hope for real change without
the perspective and support of people who
do own guns and use them.
This is not England or Australia or
China, and the American belief in
defending yourself and your property at the
point of a gun runs deep in many parts of
the country. Fearful anti-gun editorials
often state, hopelessly, that we are awash
in guns, and that all the background checks
in the world cannot help.
And in small-town gun stores, people
lean on the counters and talk about how
Obama is going to take their guns away.
Somewhere between these two poles of
fear and suspicion, there must a reasonable
middle ground, where understanding can
emerge.
In the early winter of 2016, a group of
right-wing, gun-carrying extremists with an
interesting mélange of beliefs - spanning
fundamentalist Mormonism, a peculiar
reading of the Constitution and deep
hatred of the federal government - took
over the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in
southeast Oregon, appointing themselves
as the defenders of a family of ranchers in
serious conflict with the Bureau of Land
Management Throughout the interminable
reporting on this crisis and its affect on
Harney County, there were quiet, sensible
people who never revealed their own
politics but advocated for peace and non
violence. One of these was Dave Ward, the
sheriff of Harney County, who spoke with
the armed occupiers and calmed the
townspeople. He stood his ground to keep
the peace, not to side with anyone except
the people who depended on him to
protect their remote corner of the state.
His neutrality and old-fashioned courtesy
took the wind out of the fanatics’ sails and
gave me hope.
We can find this kind of civility and
restraint everywhere, though we must
listen closely.
I spoke to my friend Dave Strahan, who
has stayed in our hometown of Grants Pass
in southern Oregon and who has hunted
and fished in its rivers and woods for
decades. He sells sporting goods, driving
to stores throughout Klamath, Jackson,
Josephine and Douglas counties. I asked
him about his thoughts on reasonable gun
The Revolutions o f the Heart series originates from a workshop taught by Martha Gies, whose students are profiling people in the community who inspire us. The
title comes from Dorothy Day: “The greatest challenge o f the day is: how to bring about a revolution o f the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one o f
us.” (Loaves and Fishes: The Inspiring Story o f the Catholic Worker Movement)