Eugene weekly., November 29, 2012, Page 13, Image 13

LOCK AND
LOAD
To get the concealed license in Lane
County, once you’ve taken your course
— online, at a hotel or at a gun range
— and get your certificate, you fill out the
county’s application, get two friends to
agree to be character references — the
form suggests you tell them that you are
doing this — and head down to the
Sheriff’s Office to pay your fee, give them
your ID and get fingerprinted. In 30 days
or so, if you pass the background check,
you get your license.
While it is required that you take a
handgun safety course, you do not actually
need to have shot a gun. Leach brought in
an array of handguns to class ranging from
a cute little revolver with a folding grip to
another, much larger, revolver dubiously
called a “Judge” that was capable of
shooting shotgun shells. He popped
magazines and rolled out cylinders to
show how to check each one was not
loaded. We then moved on to a discussion
and photos of how to hold your handgun.
Note to Jack Bauer: Leach says you are
doing it wrong, but he’s OK with it “because in real life
you don’t over-intellectualize it; you just get it done.”
Leach covers a lot in four hours, and for those who
didn’t take notes as avidly as I did, he also gave
handouts. And a DVD, featuring all the YouTube
accident videos and more. And he wrote and
published a book that can be yours for only $14.95.
MY HOME IS
(NOT) MY CASTLE
One of the first rules Leach taught is a play on the
former military policy. Don’t ask. Don’t tell. Don’t show.
Don’t ask if someone is carrying, don’t tell people
if you are carrying and don’t let your concealed
weapon show. He also brought to class some purses,
holsters and other means of hiding your gun on your
person. Fond of threes, he stressed practice, practice,
practice — using cheaper ammo for that and more
expensive (and deadly) hollow points for when you
mean business. Practice with the good stuff too, so
you know how it feels to shoot it, but the more deadly
stuff is also more spendy.
Leach didn’t recommend you just start plugging
away at the “Bad Guys.” He recommended that you
start with a “less lethal” alternative for your first
response. After that have a gun. The largest caliber
you can shoot well, he said. Then have another gun.
And extra ammo for each gun. Know the law. “Know
how to dial 911 and use it before you need it. Police
are just there for clean up.”
Let’s say you kill someone, Leach said. He
instructed us to say, “I feared for my life.” Or if it was
someone else in danger, “I feared for Bob’s life.” After
that you just demand a lawyer and say nothing else.
In Oregon, Leach told us, we don’t really have a
“castle doctrine.” In other words, just because
someone breaks into your house doesn’t mean you
get to kill him. You have to fear for your life or that of
another. But for example, let’s say you go in your
bedroom and there’s someone hiding behind a curtain
who’s not supposed to be there: “I’d be putting holes
in that curtain — at least 15 of them.” He added, “I’d
rather be tried by 12 than carried by six.”
Leach cited 21 feet as the range within which you
need to react to a “Bad Guy.” Melinda McLaughlin of
the Eugene Police Department says it’s actually even
larger — 30 feet. McLaughlin says that statistic comes
from the Force Science Institute, a scientific research
group that examines deadly force. She says the
only once when the trigger is depressed,
while a fully automatic keeps firing with the
trigger held down.
Romney was wrong; it’s actually not
illegal to own an automatic rifle. There are
limits on how automatic weapons are
bought and sold, but it’s not illegal to own
them, and the 1994 Clinton-era assault
weapons ban that banned manufacturing of
assault-style semi-automatic weapons, as
well as high-capacity ammunition magazines,
expired in 2004. The Obama administration
has bandied about a discussion of renewing
the Federal Assault Weapons Ban, which is
what has likely led to the recent post-
election surge of guns and ammo purchases.
Gun purchases aren’t the only thing that
have gone up recently. Sgt. Carrie Carver of
the Lane County Sheriff’s Office, which
issues CHLs for Lane residents, says that
applications for new concealed carry
permits have gone up, too. Back in 2006
there were 811 CHL applicants for the year.
In 2009 there were 2,032. That number has
gone down a little, but Carver says for 2012
the average is about 179 applicants a month
— that’s new permits, not renewals. Exactly
what is driving this upsurge in concealed
PHOTO O R E G O NC O NC E ALE D.B LOGSP OT. COM
carry permits, Carver is not sure.
Guns sold by dealers in Oregon are fairly regulated;
research shows it “takes less time for a person who is
private sales are less so. If you buy a gun in Oregon
armed with a knife to assault someone within 30 feet,
from a dealer or at a gun show you have to provide ID
or sometimes even more, than it would take for [the
and a fingerprint, and a quick background check goes
other] person to recognize the threat and draw a
through the Oregon State Police. There is no waiting
weapon for a defensive use.”
period and while the Firearms Instant Check System
Though Leach wasn’t the most trusting fellow
keeps a record for five years of those attempting to
when it comes to the cops — he told several tales of
buy guns, that database is not open to public
run-ins, in all of which he came away the winner and
inspection. Also not open is the database of concealed
the police looked like dorks — McLaughlin says, “Most
handgun license holders, nor does Oregon keep a
CHL holders get a CHL because they are complying
record of who owns most guns.
with the law and officers know that.”
DON LEACH
‘You’re holding that gun like a nun holds a cock,’
Dad told me. ‘You have to grip that thing.’
BUYING AND
SELLING
Concealed handguns aside, a lot of men seem
impressed when they find out I have an SKS rifle.
Picture an AK-47 and that will give you an idea of
what the gun looks like, and no, you can’t carry it
concealed; it’s too big and the license is for handguns
only. Guys are less impressed when I admit I haven’t
fired it or the .22 in a while. Bob stopped taking me
out shooting after I started hitting the centers of the
targets more than he did, though I tended to
alternate hitting bulls-eyes with whacking myself in
the head with the recoil of his .40 caliber Glock
pistol. And without Bob I’m much less of a head-on-
over-to-Bi-Mart-and-load-up-on-ammo-to-go-unload
kind of girl.
The next logical thing the guys then ask is if I will sell
them the SKS (ostensibly for their own girlfriends; this
particular semi-auto is apparently a good chick gun).
It’s easy to get confused in the morass of federal,
state, county and city gun laws. Even Mitt Romney did
during the presidential election, saying at the Oct. 16
debate, “We of course don’t want to have automatic
weapons, and that’s already illegal in this country to
have automatic weapons.”
For those of you who aren’t gun nuts or haven’t
dated one, a semi-auto automatically reloads, but fires
Federally, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Fire-
arms (ATF) website is peppered with useful information
on how to buy and sell guns correctly, including a
series of informational cartoon videos and a FAQ with
answers for those who say things like: “I want to import
firearms, ammunition and implements of war.”
Federal gun laws forbid kids under 18 from buying
handguns or owning them, but with exceptions,
according to the ATF. Long guns (rifles and shotguns),
however, are fine for kids to buy under federal law if
not purchased from a federal firearms licensee, and
youth 18 to 21 can buy handguns, just not from a
federal licensee. The lesson here for some might just
be: Don’t buy your gun from a federal licensee —
though they are the folks who can legally sell guns
across state lines.
If you are a private seller, selling to another
Oregonian, there’s no background check needed or
record of sale required, though you are not supposed
to knowingly sell to felons or others who can’t legally
own guns. Giving guns as gifts is also fine, Leach said,
reminding us, “Beware the man who only has one
gun. He probably knows how to use it.”
Bob once bought a Browning .20 gauge semi-auto
shotgun at a garage sale in south Eugene. This
seemed like a bad idea to me, but Bob was super-
pleased to add it to his small arsenal. I think he’s still
pissed, though, that I wouldn’t sell him the SKS or the
.22 when we broke up. ■
eugeneweekly.com • November 29, 2012
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