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8A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2015 Divide: ‘There’s such a culture clash, I don’t think it can be explained’ Continued from Page 1A Oct. 1 shooting at Umpqua Community College in Rose- burg . Nine people dead, plus the gunman. Nine wounded. One issue, two sides From urban areas, primarily, come the demands for greater gun control. From rural areas, primarily, comes the answer: Leave us alone. How to cross that divide? “There’s such a culture clash, I don’t think it can be ex- plained,” said Goit, who opened Eastern Oregon Tactical in Hermiston four years ago. “The opposite culture bafÀ es me.” Wes Hare says it’s a really tough question. Hare is city manager of Alba- ny, in the Willamette Valley. He started in Ashland, went to high school in Bend, and lived in Eu- gene, Oakridge and La Grande before Albany. He’s spent plenty of time in Portland and Salem. He guesses the urban-rural divide in Oregon isn’t much different than a lot of other states. “I think typically the notion is, and I’m sure it’s true, in pre- dominantly rural places people are more concerned about gun rights, more interested in them and more concerned about intru- sion” on those rights, Hare said. Part of that attitude comes from heritage. Many rural West- erners grew up handling guns at relatively young ages. Tap a cur- rent or former country boy of a certain age and he’ll tell you of the single-shot . riÀ e leaning against the wall in the closet. Squirrels beware. “When I was a kid,” Hare said, “you could go out in the country and shoot a gun, and it wouldn’t cause much of a stir — in part because there weren’t as many people around. “If you live on a ranch, who cares if you shoot a gun?” Hare said. “You won’t hit anything.” Hare had a .22 for plinking and a Winchester .308 for hunt- ing deer. Gun ownership was part of the culture. “That doesn’t mean there weren’t problems with guns,” he said. An eighth -grade classmate was accidentally shot and killed ONLINE Pew Research Center report: http://pewrsr.ch/1kzTTku by his father while hunting. A kid living nearby was shot by his brother but survived. A friend’s father committed suicide with a gun. An elderly neighbor shot his wife, then killed himself. “Guns were very much part of the culture, but so were gun deaths,” Hare said. Senior Trooper Kreg Coggins, who works from the Oregon State Police outpost in Enterprise, in Oregon’s northeast corner, said he interacts with armed, legal hunters 12 months of the year. “I’m somewhat de sensitized to people who have guns,” he said. “It’s kind of odd for them not to have guns.” Means of protection In the rural West, help from sheriff’s deputies or state troop- ers may be spread thin and miles distant. Some residents, it’s fair to say, own guns and keep them handy out of a belief that they may need to protect themselves, their fam- ilies and their livestock, equip- ment, crops or other valuables. Two-legged troublemak- ers are a worry, but many rural Westerners also share the land- scape with coyotes, cougars, wolves or bears. Eastern Idaho rancher Brian Mays, who leases a 300-acre private pasture southeast of Henry’s Lake, estimates griz- zlies have killed 14 of his cows in the past four years — four this season. He recently rounded up some heavily armed compatri- ots to help him scour the brush for cattle, or bears. “They’re not the warm fuzzy creatures everybody seems to think they are,” Mays said. “If urban people could see how vicious they are with their prey when they kill them, it might wake them up.” Urban reality It’s different in cities. Some urban areas put up with the occasional cougar scare or coyotes carrying off cats, but most city wildlife encounters in- volve raccoons or possums, not wolves or grizzlies. Gang shootouts are a danger in some city neighborhoods. The presence of unruly street kids and unkempt homeless people, some of them clearly mentally ill, may add to urban unease about weapons or an in- terest in possessing them. The Oregonian reported in 2013 that 1 in 16 Oregonians held a concealed handgun li- cense, or CHL. At one point in the early 2000s in Gresham, a Portland suburb, two members of the City Council and its city manager held CHLs. Open carry is legal in Port- land, but guns must be un- loaded unless the carrier has a concealed handgun license, Portland Police Bureau spokes- man Sgt. Pete Simpson said . Portland police have re- sponded to 911 calls involving people who were openly car- rying ¿ rearms, Simpson said. Statistics on the number of such calls are not readily avail- able, but Simpson said of¿ cers respond based on information they receive. Open-carry advo- cates such as Goit, the Hermis- ton gun shop owner, might not be received calmly in cities. “It is problematic in an urban environment,” Simpson said, “as it’s not something people are used to seeing and arguably could put the carrier at risk from another carrier who may per- ceive a threat.” Armed with statistics A report released in August by the Pew Research Center, based in Washington, D.C., doc- umented the urban-rural differ- ences. Of people living in urban areas, 60 percent believe it’s more important to control gun ownership and 38 percent be- lieve gun rights should take pri- ority. The results are reversed in rural areas, with 63 percent say- ing gun rights are more import- ant. Suburban residents were evenly divided on the question. The question of whether to ban the sale of military-style assault weapons also illustrates the divide. Sixty-two percent of urban residents favor a ban, while agreement drops to 56 percent of suburban residents and 48 percent of rural residents, according to the Pew report. But a greater percentage of rural and suburban residents — 80 percent and 81 percent, respectively, compared to 76 percent of urban residents — be- lieve mentally ill people should be banned from having guns. Interestingly, the U.S. ¿ re- arm homicide rate has been steadily dropping since 1993, according to the Pew study. Homicides involving ¿ rearms accounted for seven deaths per 100,000 people in 1993, but dropped to 3.6 per 100,000 peo- ple by 2010 . Suicides account for 60 percent of ¿ rearm deaths nationally, and about 75 percent in Oregon, according to the group Cease¿ re Oregon. The group, based in Portland, describes itself as opposing gun violence and advocating for rea- sonable gun control laws. Among other things, Cease¿ re Oregon hosts voluntary gun turn-in events that, since 1994, have resulted in more than 7,800 weapons being turned in and destroyed. Gun ownership by region * Percent of all households with a gun in the home. Northeast 27% Midwest West 35% 34% South 38% Percent in each group who say they have a gun, pistol or rifle in their home: Gender Total 34% Men 38 Women 31 Age 32 30-49 40 40 50-64 65 and over Environment Urban 25 Suburban Common ground Executive Director Penny Okamoto said the urban-ru- ral gun divide is not as deep as groups such as the National Ri- À e Association would have peo- ple believe. The vast majority of gun owners support background checks, safe storage of weap- ons and suicide prevention pro- grams, Okamoto said. Cease¿ re Oregon also ad- vocates a ban on high-capacity magazines and a limit of one gun purchase a month to prevent traf¿ cking, she said. “We have a lot of common ground,” Okamoto said. “Peo- ple are not opposed to respon- sible gun ownership, and that’s the vast majority of gun owners. “There are a lot of things we can do to reduce gun violence and stay well within the Second Amendment,” she said. “I tell people gun violence is 26 18-29 36 51 Rural Party Republican Democrat 49 22 37 Independent Ideology Conservative 41 36 Moderate Liberal 23 * Based on a national survey of 3,243 adults with an overall sampling margin of error of plus or minus 2.3 percentage points. Source: Pew Research Center, American Trends Panel, April 29- May 27, 2014 Capital Press graphic like cancer,” she said. “There are a lot of different kinds of cancer, and a lot of different kinds of gun violence. What will the Oregon economy look like in 2016? “You can’t cure all cancer with one pill, and you can’t kill gun violence with one law or one education program.” TO ATTE N D : F or M em bers: D in n er & L ecture:$25 ea . L ecture on ly: n o ch a rge F or Non -M em bers: D in n er & L ecture: $35 ea . L ecture on ly: $15 ea . 9`HU;HNNHY[5\YZL *YP[PJHS*HYL<UP[ `LHYZH[*4/ Our people make The Planetree Difference Joe Cortright November 5 Joe Cortright is president and principal economist of Impresa Consulting of Portland. He is chair of the Governor’s Council of Economic Advisors. Also he is director of a new think tank called City Observer, funded by the John S. Knight Foundation. Appetizers w ill be a va ila ble a t 6 p.m . D in n er w ill be served a t 6:30 p.m . T h e spea ker w ill begin a fter th e din n er service is com plete a n d n on - din n er m em bers a n d guests of th e a udien ce ta ke th eir sea ts. F orum to be h eld a t th e CM H Com m un ity Cen ter a t 2021 E xch a n ge St., Astoria . LIM ITE SEATIN D G RE SE R VE SPACE TO Y D O U R AY ! 7LVWSL*LU[LYLK8\HSP[`+YP]LU:LY]PJL-VJ\ZLK Ryan is one of the caregivers at CMH who exemplifies our Promise of Excellence: t t t t t t Respect Integrity Compassion Leadership Safety Teamwork Caregivers like Ryan make your community hospital one to be proud of. “I am a people person who does well when people are in need, on any level. I feel proud when our patients come in sick and leave feeling better and well cared for.” – Ryan Taggart, Nurse &YDIBOHF4U"TUPSJB0SFHPOt XXXDPMVNCJBNFNPSJBMPSHt"1MBOFUSFF%FTJHOBUFE)PTQJUBM Columbia Fo r um FOR RESERVATION OR TO JOIN COLUMBIA FORUM CONTACT: H olly L a rk in s a t 503.325.3211 ext. 227 or foru m @ d a ilya storia n .com by N ov. 2n d , 2015 Columbia Forum is sponsored by: The D a ily Asto ria n • Cra ft3 • O SU Sea fo o d L a b o ra to ry • K M U N -F M Ca n n ery Pier H o tel & Sp a