In Town at Ease With Its Firearms, Tightening Gun Rules Was Resisted

[NeoConsSuck]

Source: NY Times

People in the rural, hilly areas around Newtown, Conn., are used to gunfire. In one woodsy stretch, southeast of downtown, the Pequot Fish and Game Club and the Fairfield County Fish and Game Protective Association, where members can fish in ponds and hunt pheasant, lie within a mile of each other, and people who live nearby generally call them good neighbors.

But in the last couple of years, residents began noticing loud, repeated gunfire, and even explosions, coming from new places. Near a trailer park. By a boat launch. Next to well-appointed houses. At 2:20 p.m. on one Wednesday last spring, multiple shots were reported in a wooded area on Cold Spring Road near South Main Street, right across the road from an elementary school.

Yet recent efforts by the police chief and other town leaders to gain some control over the shooting and the weaponry turned into a tumultuous civic fight, with traditional hunters and discreet gun owners opposed by assault weapon enthusiasts, and a modest tolerance for bearing arms competing with the staunch views of a gun industry trade association, the National Shooting Sports Foundation, which has made Newtown its home.

The place that witnessed one of the worst mass killings in United States history on Friday, leaving 20 schoolchildren and 8 adults dead, is a bucolic New England town comfortable with its firearms, and not an obvious arena for the nation’s debate over gun control. But the legislative battle right here shows how even the slightest attempts to impose restrictions on guns can run into withering resistance, made all the more pointed by the escalation in firepower.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/17/nyregion/in-newtown-conn-a-stiff-resistance-to-gun-restrictions.html

[BeyondGeography]

1. As fate would have it...

[sasha031]

2. excellent article, the residents were under siege by the gun nuts

The police department logged more than 50 gunfire complaints this year through July, double the number for all of 2011, records show. Some of the complaints raised another issue. Gun enthusiasts here, as elsewhere in the country, have taken to loading their targets with an explosive called Tannerite, which detonates when bullets strike it, sending shock waves afield. A mixture of ammonium nitrate and aluminum powder, Tannerite is legal in Connecticut, but safety concerns led Maryland this year to ban it.

I couldn't even imagine, what it must be like to have the constant sound of rapid guns fire going off, armed residents explosions, not able to take a walk in the woods, questionable out the back door.
Anderson Copper paints this town as a Norman Rockwell painting, on the contrary it sound like a war zone.

[NeoConsSuck]

3. Agree.

I wonder how many more Nancy Lanza's live in that community?

[ComplimentarySwine]

4. Tannerite is great fun n/t

[sasha031]

5. there is something seriously wrong with you

[ComplimentarySwine]

8. Because I think shooting at legal exploding targets is fun? n/t

[earthbone]

10. Mr. Swine

Correct.

[Zoeisright]

12. Yes.

Shooting at legal exploding targets and thinking that is fun is fucking weird.

[Frank Cannon]

16. WTF is the point? To make a bigger noise?

Are you easily amused by bright, shiny objects, as well?

[ComplimentarySwine]

18. Yes, easily amused describes me well n/t

[askeptic]

20. Yes, Some of us go to fireworks displays, too.

Sheesh!

[Kolesar]

13. Haw haw haw

Haw haw he

[ComplimentarySwine]

14. No kidding, it really is

If you're out varmint hunting, you can even pack it into a carcass and then blow it up, assuming that this is legal in your jurisdiction, of course.

[Kolesar]

15. The guys on Bowling for Columbine had fun with explosives, too

The Michigan Militia types. Tim McVeigh's buddies

[Frank Cannon]

17. Oh, that's a good one. Exploding dead animals.

Didn't I see you on the Farm Film Report?

[EmeraldCityGrl]

6. Taking a close look at the community

by those qualified to do so, will reveal much and answer questions.

Strip away the "perfect little New England Village." that the media
and the community itself has crafted and there will be answers.

I'm so sick of hearing what a tight knit, perfect place Newtown was.
Well apparently something was very, very wrong. There are just too
many questions as to how a dangerously ill young adult was left
nearly home bound, becoming more and more unstable and allowed
access to weaponry designed for war. No one knew or saw a thing
in the oh so tight knit community? What services were available to
his Mother? Or was she concerned with image and did not want to
appear to be anything but perfect.

Places that are perfect, make it difficult for the less than perfect to
thrive, get help or just feel a part of the community.

[OneMoreDemocrat]

7. Excellent post...

Thank you.

[preventivePhD]

11. Good post

Mother was a prepper which means she was prepping for the end of the world. Who knows maybe everyone was shot because her son believed the end was near. Here other son admitted he hadn't seen the killer in two years. The mother took him out of school because she disagreed with his treatment and we haven't heard that he was receiving treatment of any kind.

Chances are he has some personality disorder that developed into some delusional disorder or his mothers extreme beliefs interacted with his existing problems. Hard to say unless they release psychiatric records.

[oldbanjo]

19. Sounds like this community created their

own problem, maybe they were making too much money to take control of things. There are a lot of things that need to be looked at prior to blaming everyone with a gun.