Just as we all finished saying goodbye to Gail Specter as she packed up and moved away from Newton, Commonwealth Magazine published Gail’s thoughts on Newton’s recently passed gun store ban.
What do you think? Without further action, is “banning gun stores in Newton more self-serving than transformative”?
Great article. I believe “banning gun stores in Newton” is neither self-serving nor transformative. Bullets and guns easily travel over lines drawn on maps.
I think we’ve protected ourselves about as well as Poe’s Prince Prospero did.
Not sold on a lot of her arguments.
“Yet, if the same business owner tried to open a shop on Main Street in Watertown, just two miles away, most Newton residents probably wouldn’t have even taken notice.”
For one thing, people in Newton might not have become privy to this information because they get their local news from Newton specific blogs. Next, they may feel that there is not as much they can do about it – elected officials in Watertown don’t need to advocate for residents of another city. Would getting heavily involved in eliminating a gun store in another city be a fruitful endeavor? Lastly, I do think people would get upset about it if they knew about it – especially those in abutting neighborhoods
I didn’t know that there were gun shops in Natick and Waltham until recently. I go to businesses in both of those cities very frequently, but I don’t generally follow their current events at all.
So I don’t think her accusations of hypocrisy stand. Most people don’t have the bandwidth to stay on top of these issues in other cities. It doesn’t mean they’re cool with a gun store.
At the end of her piece Gail declares, “If Newton residents want to lower the rate of gun violence in the country, we need to harness our privilege to help more vulnerable communities feel safer.” In this case we are damned if we do and damned if we don’t. Should residents of Newton travel to less “privileged” areas to advocate for greater gun control, then we risk being accused of being paternalistic and of telling others how to keep their communities secure. If we look the other way as gun culture prospers and expands, then we are being indifferent to the plight of the less fortunate as we inhabit our safe and secure sanctuary city.
I did not participate in the movement to ban gun stores in Newton because I feared the legal opportunity it might provide the NRA and other gun advocates to challenge any regulation anywhere of their location. Still, I fully understand why residents of Newtonville and other parts of Newton resented their neighborhoods’ being designated as “safe” places for such businesses. The waters here are murky at best.
Here’s a basic fact: in Europe, where gun possession is far less widespread, homicide rates are lower and towns and cities safer per capita compared with the United States. It simply is more difficult for malevolent individuals to commit murder with knives and lesser weapons. It makes no sense to me that Americans can purchase almost any firearm, even those designed for war like semi-automatics, because the Founding Fathers supposedly guaranteed the right.
Finally, residents of Newton, like other human beings, have the right to hold views and pursue causes that they view as morally just whether or not they themselves are affluent. Too often of late, people play the “prvilege” card to deny the validity of an opposing point of view. Take on the substance of an opposing opinion, not the affluence of its holder.
Bob’s post is mostly correct. As to your last point though, it should be quite obvious that the affluence, privilege, whatever you want to call it that in places like Newton we are fortunate to have is a problem. Moreover, the affluence and privilege of places like Newton has been used quite effectively in most of the rest of the country by the right and the gun lobby to water down gun laws and to largely allow unfettered access to guns, among many other things. The City Council’s action, however noble, will do little to stop this unfortunate trend.
Recently, I resolved to take an indefinite hiatus from social media. But this controversy is important enough that I decided to break my resolution, just this once, to address what I see as the real issue.
I learned that the NPD recently received a report that a man was openly carrying a firearm in his waistband near a grocery store on Washington Street. The police responded promptly, and discreetly informed the man, who precisely matched the description given, of the nature of the report and asked him to accompany them outside of the store. The firearm was not visible to the police officers, although they could see the outline of a handgun underneath the man’s clothing. When asked, the man, who is from another town, confirmed that he was carrying a handgun, and produced his MA license to carry a firearm, which police quickly verified through the Department of Criminal Justice Information Services. The police then allowed the man to go about his business.
In email correspondence with Newton Police Chief John Carmichael, he confirmed all of the above facts, and referred me to state public safety laws and police training protocols, which allow police to stop a person suspected of carrying a firearm and ask for their license. Police officers are allowed to ask anyone suspected of carrying a firearm for their license to carry, but not to detain or frisk them unless the police officers have reason to believe criminal activity is involved or that the suspect is armed and dangerous. In this case, the police officers followed the law and their training, by approaching the suspect with caution, quietly asking him to accompany them outside the store so as not to alarm other customers, and asking him to produce his license to carry. I would like to commend the NPD and the officers involved for the professional manner in which they handled this matter, and for protecting the public safety as well as the civil rights of the suspect. For his part, the suspect was totally cooperative and actually thanked the police officers for doing their jobs.
As an attorney who has handled civil rights cases, I have had reservations right from the start about the City passing a law that applies retroactively to prevent someone from engaging in a legal business except in a highly limited number of places, let alone ban it outright. Moreover, I believe that the above referenced incident demonstrates how ineffective the gun shop law Newton adopted actually is, however good and virtuous it might make people opposed to gun violence feel. As Chief Carmichael pointed out to me, while Massachusetts gun control laws do not expressly permit a person to openly carry a firearm, there is no law prohibiting it. Which is why the police officers did not detain the man who was carrying a firearm in his waistband into a local grocery store, nor confiscate his weapon.
Private businesses can legally ban carrying a firearm into their place of business in Massachusetts. But the fact that a person can legally carry a handgun (not a long gun or rifle) into a grocery store should give us all pause. Too many shootings have occurred inside stores or malls, or other public places, by persons who purchased and carried their firearms legally. The fact that in Massachusetts there is no law against openly carrying a firearm demonstrates why the gun store ban law Newton adopted would be useless to stop someone from walking into a store, or a restaurant, or most other places and begin shooting innocent victims.
I understand why the City Council had a knee jerk reaction to the planned opening of a gun shop in Newtonville. Nevertheless, I respectfully submit that the law the City adopted will be totally ineffective at stopping or curtailing gun violence in Newton, or anywhere else for that matter. The man stopped by police does not come from Newton, and was legally carrying a firearm into a grocery store, and could have bought the gun literally anywhere else in Massachusetts. Instead, I would strongly urge gun control activists in Newton who are genuinely concerned about stopping gun violence to get in touch with their state representatives, and ask them to pass a law that would ban or restrict carrying firearms in public. Such a law might be challenged by Second Amendment advocates, but I think, as a mountain to die on, it is distinctly preferable to a local zoning ordinance or ban on gun shops, which will have zero effect on actually preventing gun violence.
Given his clear lack of appreciation or even understanding for American history, law, and culture, we should all be thankful that Mr. Jampol’s “impact” was limited to the English classroom.
It’s a signal. Guns are a public health crisis. Signal away.
There’s nothing wrong with the City council and Mayor passing a zoning law that the overwhelming majority of their constituents appear to be in favor of. Nobody needs to apologize that it may not have a strong effect on the tragedy of national gun violence. Newton citizens wanted to preserve the present lack of gun storefronts; probably for a mix of reasons including property values, concern about local safety, character of our commercial districts, or just liberal sensibilities. Local government was responsive to their concerns. By all means advocate for state and national gun control laws if that’s your belief, but I wouldn’t criticize Newton’s government in this case for doing its duty and prioritizing its constituents.
“Yet, if the same business owner tried to open a shop on Main Street in Watertown, just two miles away, most Newton residents probably wouldn’t have even taken notice.”
Not for nothing, but Watertown is looking into implementing restrictions of their own
https://www.watertown-ma.gov/DocumentCenter/View/32274/2021-05-25-Firearms-Restrictions-in-Zoning
Brookline and Wellesley are as well, as is their right to do so.
The new zoning will remove gun stores from school walking routes and other areas where young children congregate (Cabot’s Ice Cream for instance). Students are frequently reminded that gun violence is a school issue, either when doing lockdown drills or after hearing about the numerous school shooting in another community. They shouldn’t be placed in the position where they walk by a gun store at an age, perhaps without an adult, when they can’t fully process the experience.
This was my motivation for becoming involved in the restricted zoning issue. Other people had different reasons for their involvement. Very few people indicated that they thought preventing this gun store would increase or decrease gun violence in Newton.
@Adam B–
On what do you base your opinion that a majority of Newton residents support the zoning law? Was there a vote? A poll?
Mike – proprietary algorithm.
Adam– Very funny! In truth, neither of us really knows how most Newton residents feel about gun store zoning.
I do know that I personally would prefer the most restrictive zoning possible. It’s the way the issue was handled by the City Council, retroactively, that gives me pause.
I agree 100% with Ted. This was a knee jerk reaction on the part of the council. It’s not the first time the council has done the knee jerk thing. They reacted similarly by banning the sale of cannabis after it was legalized statewide in 2016.
Mike – it’s April, you’re a city councilor, and you just found out with the rest of your colleagues that a gun store is readying to open in Newtonville. What would you have done differently? Honest question.
Adam– Zoning is an omnipresent issue in Newton. City Councilors deal with zoning issues all the time. I’m surprised none of them [24] were familiar enough with the zoning regs to see the gaping hole regarding gun stores.
I’m also surprised that the police didn’t notify the mayor immediately upon receiving [and apparently approving] the application for a gun store. There were multiple opportunities to head this off in advance, rather than after the fact.
@ Jane Frantz
“Brookline and Wellesley are as well, as is their right to do so.”
Not if the courts decide they don’t. Hopefully it will come down to that and put an end to this bubble headed nonsense.
It’s my understanding that Brookline is pursuing restrictive zoning regulations. I totally forgot that Wellesley is going the ban route. To be clear, I support restrictive zoning.
The real concern is well expressed by Ted Hess-Mahan as his recommendation would actually address what the real time problem is for health and safety, the carrying of weapons in public places. A semi-automatic handgun is just as dangerous as any other weapon and doesn’t get the media scrutiny that it should. The media likes terms such as “assault rifle, etc,” when there is a bigger picture to see.
The City Council didn’t ban gun stores with their ordinance, they crafted a good order that requires specific zoning and then requires a City Council approval of a Special Permit to open. This is less likely to be challenged in court as a potential application is given a path to open, though in the current world not likely to be successful.
Cambridge, from how I read their ordinance, also does not ban gun stores, they ban the sale of handguns. This doesn’t generate a court challenge as a person could open a store that sells hunting rifles, sport rifles, etc, just not handguns.
It’s a complex topic that requires well thought out solutions that could be implemented in a timely manner.
It doesn’t matter what other communities are doing. It doesn’t matter that restrictive zoning is legal.
the fact of the matter is that Newton counselors and residents use their privilege and power to circumvent the law.
You devised a strategy of drawing arbitrary circles around churches schools and government buildings that sounds logical and meaningful.
It was a farce.
If you going to purchase a gun with malicious intent, would you not want it to be on the edges of town away from everything?
I support more restrictive gun laws and I have no affinity for guns. I also realize that restrictive zoning was created to keep affordable housing, lower-income people and racial minorities out of wealthy and middle-class neighborhoods.
So don’t be all proud and feeling like you are good people. You tinkered with the mechanics of the system to get what you want. Because you can. Because just maybe, you think you are better, morally superior people.
Snooty Newton, Ma.. No city I know of has a larger percentage of pretentious, virtue signaling drama queens who have had soft, sheltered lives