I’m not sure gun “control” versus regulation is the same issue.

I am not advocating taking guns per se away from people (except criminals and the mentally defective to use the federal term). But I think meaningful distinctions can be made as to what sort of firepower is available to whom and with what level of training.

While I doubt if a K-12 education system is the answer as one commentator has suggested …I do agree that we need a very wide spread basic education about guns whether or not someone is actually wanting to own and use one…with more degrees of training above that depending on the role one wants to play.

Coming back to the basic education level….having grown up with guns one gets a really good idea of the damage they can do and the responsibility that goes with firearms possession and use. That level of education was sort of basic as a part of rural life and family members took care of this.

Ideally the basic training including having the opportunity to do some shooting (like was offered in summer camps) changes the fear of guns to respect and responsibility. Fire is beneficial or can burn homes and forests down. We cannot be afraid of fire…we must learn how to use it positively. Same for guns.

Even though I had what I’d call “basic training” with a wide range of firearms as a kid…when put in a situation of working with cops in the field under cover it was immediately obvious I really didn’t know squat about how to use a weapon in the context of real-time crime situations. The cops involved were not about to have me out there without being a functional part of the team on the ground, so I got a cop’s vesion of Police Academy with a real life “pass fail” situation in which to assess wheter or not I had any business being out there. I passed…but gained a whole new comprehension about how really difficult it is to keep your cool when bullets are flying or someone is waving a weapon around.

There is a kind of training that law enforcement folks as well as emergency responders and crisis management people get that focuses on, what I’ll call “being in the zone” where one goes to a different level of consciousness, your training kicks in, you’re not over thinking a situation, and you act appropriately and responsibly. The aide that went to Gabby’s side and used his training to save her life for example…listening to him talk about what he did and why he did it…wow….

There are what I call the “oath people” who are tasked with law enforcement and emergency response who…when the gunfire starts or the planes hit buildings run towards the event…not away from it. The nore of us that are “oath people” the better for all.

What concerns me is there are a lot of people who think that by just merely owning a wespon, they are prepared to deal with a crisis situation…and I’m sure there are many who have the right instincts to act…but I also think that a whole lot of people would benefit from the kind of training that is offered in the emergency response and law enforcement venues.

The last decade, because of my duties and responsibilities in Nogales, I went through a lot of additional training and drills in the FEMA emergency response context and have served in various capacities in Emerency Operations Center management of stuff like train wrecks as well as training exercises such as having a bunch of terrorists blow up the port of entry and inflitrate into the city carrying automatic weapons.

I encourage everyone to consider taking some of the training that’s available for citizens to be part of an emergency response effort. Check the FEMA website or your local fire station for training opportunities.

When you look at how everyone acted in the wake of the shooting….there were obviously lots and lots of people doing the right stuff because they were trained.

I think the gun debate has to focus on responsibility and not just rights.

If you really want to stay awake at night and worry about stuff related to Mexico…here’s some bloggish food for your nightmares:

What if Mexico collapses?

Emergency management people do all sorts of pretend exercises to anticipate what to do in an emergency, what resources will be needed, and so forth.

The National Emergency exercises cover a gamut of potential events such as a nuclear weapon going off in a city to pandemics to category 5 hurricanes hitting Houston or New York Cityand so on. Of course the list of the scenarios for national disaster is a secret.

Obviously some of this emergency management planning isn’t done very well (oil well explodes in the Gulf, Category 3 hurricane hits New Orleans). But emergency management folks do anticipate all kinds of situations and make plans and hold drills just in case one of them happens. These emergency disaster drills are sometimes publicized events.

I participated in one of these exercises which was a mock terrorist attack at the Nogales border port of entry.

I will bet that various Southwestern border state and local governments and the feds have run some scenarios about “what if there’s a revolution in Mexico and millions of Mexican flee their country?”

The scenarios could pose several types of revolutions—

–a right wing revolution where people finally get sick and tired of the corruption. This leads to a military junta and a lot of impoverished left-wing Mexicans and Indians flee.

–a left wing revolution installing a Hugo Chavez type dictator in power. This leads to a lot of middle class and wealthy Mexicans fleeing their country. Ever wonder why so many wealthy Sonorans own second homes in Tucson?

–a narco state is created run by the drug cartels. This leads to everyone fleeing the country that can.

These scenarios all have roots in history. During the last Mexican revolution lots of people fled that country and ended up in the US. Ever wonder why Tucson has Yaqui Indian villages around town? During a period of student unrest in 1968 hundreds of college kids fled the country. Some of them ended up at the U of A. Right now many Mexican citizens are fleeing the drug violence across the line.

Currently, I’d have to guess the “Mexico turning into a narco-state” is the most likely game being played by emergency management planners. Others see this possibility as well.

If Mexico blows up, my guess is that the border will be overwhelmed with people trying to come north. And not just on the ground. Private planes could be landing all over the countryside…even on the freeways. We could see several hundred thousand people at our border in a matter of days if Mexico blows up.

Huge refugee camps would have to be set up all over the Southwest US. Transport would have to be arranged from the border to these refugee camps. Hundreds of thousand would have to be fed and clothed.

Solutions like SB 1070 barely scratch the surface of the really deep problems facing our border with Mexico.

The enormous drug demand from US drug users is making the Mexican drug cartels a formidable military force in Mexico. Between buying politicians and cops, and beheading the ones that don’t cooperate, there are reportedly already serious portions of Mexico that the central and state governments do not control.

The whole approach of US border policy presumes that maybe 90% of Mexico’s population actually doesn’t want to head north. Roughly ten percent of Mexico’s population has already left their country which has probably kept the dampers on a left-wing revolutionary movement like the Zapatistas from gaining much ground.

But if Mexico’s economy collapses, or the drug cartels really take over, all bets are off.

As they say in Mexico “So far from God and so close to the United States”.

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More posts on border issues

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