3-2 VOTE IN FAVOR OF REGULATING LA MESA’S RESIDENTIAL STORAGE OF FIREARMS

July 2024 Articles

July 28, 2024 (La Mesa) -- The nationwide riots in 2020, including in La Mesa, sparked whispers to defund the police. While varying degrees of this conversation are igniting again, lines are blurring between a nation’s objectivity and its intention behind police oversight boards, and now citizens are taking a stance on regulations for the residential storage of firearms.

At this week's City Council meeting, members and the public spoke out on a proposal to regulate storage of firearms.

For Councilmember Colin Parent, who remembers being held at gunpoint, he thinks it is a basic human right to feel safe within the community, and the prevention of unintentional uses of personal firearms is a modest and appropriate step toward the preservation of security.

The La Mesa Community Police Oversight Board was cultivated three years ago and fumbles to fill the city’s Northeast seat, a vacant fourth chair that’s collected cobwebs this year. The structure behind the board should consist of various sectors representing the youth, business, education and faith communities. Each of the city’s four quadrants is appointed by the jurisdiction’s police department and city council.

It’s important to have a greater mixture of voices representing all citizens, according to Councilmember Jack Shu (photo, right), who thinks it’s pivotal to provide de-escalation and negotiation tactics for abuses or issues of unfairness. Shu thinks its original intention is to provide guidance, not support to the police department, like a pet or booster club, but to help the force improve and deal with complaint processes.

“The people on the oversight board … they’re like police officers; they support law enforcement in general, but you have to realize [that] law enforcement in general, particularly the culture in law enforcement, needs oversight by citizens," he said. "You can’t have police officers looking over police officers.”

Andy Trimlett, an applicant for the oversight board’s fourth quadrant position who served on the original team formed in 2016, has applied month after month. To Shu, a few Council members cannot see the vital necessity of filling La Mesa’s fourth spot on the oversight board. He thinks it’s counterproductive to leave one section of the community underrepresented.

“Overall I think La Mesa’s police department is quite good. Better than many other police departments in our region. Probably one of the best around, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be looking to continuously be better and overall, I think, most people recognize that police culture in the United States needs to be reformed in various ways,” Shu said.

Janet Castaños (photo, left), the vice chair of La Mesa’s Community Police Oversight Board, introduces the topic of gun violence as a public health crisis. The considered ordinance regulating the residential storage of firearms will help change the statistical trend in preventing a child or person with suicidal ideations from accessing firearms and cut down the probability of home break-ins for theft. She thinks it’s a huge public safety risk to have a city where officers are outgunned and endangered by thieves.

“It’s something I’ve been working on for many years because there’s a gap in our legal system, in our laws in California,” Shu said.

Last year this same resolution went in front of the council and the ordinance’s language required that guns stay locked up at all times unless it’s in use, but now the resolution outlines storage only when the resident is out of the house.

“So in other words, if the resident is home, they can sleep with a gun under their pillow if they want, if that makes them feel good, but now they say if you’re leaving the house or if you’re going on vacation, lock your guns up,” Castaños said.

On the opposing side is Councilmember Laura Lothian, who wonders why the city is wasting government funding and effort on a nonproblem. She reminisces back 70 years ago to a time with less gun regulations and quickly highlights since gun regulations have become stricter, violence has steadily increased, carrying the weight of even more deaths.

“I think this is city or government overreach. We are telling adults with no criminal records, no children in the house, how to store their firearms in the privacy of their own home. It’s also just not a problem,” Lothian said.

By utilizing a gun cabinet, a layer of safety can simply slow down the brain, altering its chemistry, which prevents suicide or violent actions where people are killed or injured, according to Shu. “If they want to come home, unlock their weapons, and carry, you know, five guns, that’s within their control and they can have full access.”

Castaños, also a retired dean of English and Social/Behavioral Sciences at Grossmont College, highlights studies that show when a gun is readily available, and someone is experiencing a moment of depression, they will use the weapon and it will become effective.

“We really need to have an ordinance that requires guns to be securely locked with the owner, homeowner, or gun owner outside of the residence. My neighbor had their house robbed. They had three long guns available, not locked. The thieves took them with the ammunition,” Castaños said

The City Council voted on considering this ordinance to regulate the residential storage of firearms, which ended in a 3-2 vote. Councilmember Patricia N. Dillard, Councilmember Colin Parent and Councilmember Jack Shu approved the motion. However, Mayor Mark Arapostathis and Vice Mayor Laura Lothian voted against the safe storage of firearms.

“Even saving one person is worth it, but if we can save five, then that’s a no-brainer. I can’t believe the Mayor voted against it. His own student died because there was no safe gun storage here in La Mesa,” Castaños said.

During public comments, Gene Carpenter, a La Mesa advocacy group member, also criticized the Mayor. “So, you disappeared for three days,Mayor, you disappeared during the riots... and you’re going to do things like this? You’re a sad man,” he said.

With concern over someone’s mental health, Shu thinks whether they are over the age of 18 or not, it’s true for everyone, he hopes that each household will take action by either removing the weapon or locking it up safely, especially in the presence of someone with a mental health concern to make casually accessing a gun more difficult.

“The most restrictive cities in the United States are the ones with the highest gun violence, so I think we should be looking at society more than gun regulations,” Lothian said.

Michelle Gilgannon, a member of San Diegans for Gun Violence Prevention, thinks everyone, including parents and teachers, has a civic duty to educate themselves on the topic of gun safety and invites the community to seek out alternative measures rather than staying armed.

“If you live in a community, then obviously you’re going to make sure your doors are locked, you have safe windows, you’re not gonna have foolish behavior. Common sense, safe things, you know, maybe not leave your children home at night. Arming yourself is not the answer to being safer like I said, it’s just the opposite,” Gilgannon said.

She thinks another way to crack down on the unintended use of firearms is for stricter manufacturer and gun seller laws, such as a California Personal Firearms Eligibility Check (PFEC), with fines involved without abiding by a 72-hour waiting period. During the Cold War, Gilgannon remembers duck-and-cover drills in case an atom bomb was dropped, and now children have active shooter drills becoming a societal norm.

“I remember thinkin’ now that Trump got shot maybe the Republicans will realize, wow this is a problem, this 20-year-old kid had an AK-whatever, you know, it’s really sad,” Gilgannon said.

It’s proven statistically difficult to buckle down, according to Gilgannon, like a full-time job. Still, she’s confident these baby steps in legislation will help propel change because nothing happens overnight.

“The intent of the police oversight board is to provide oversight. It is not to support the police department directly. Although they could be supportive of what the police department is doing, it’s not a pet club, but to help the police department get better,” Shu said.

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Comments

Let's make a deal

I am sure the remaining law abiding gun owners of La mesa would gladly exchange the promise to safely store their firearms in exchange for a promise from the LMPD that they will never again leave the Citizens of La Mesa on their own to defend themselves from wanton rioting and looting.

On 5/30/20 I stood with my neighbors, armed with our personal firearms, to defend our street from roving bands of rioters with arms full of loot from the nearby shopping center.

We stood in disbelief as the LMPD suddenly disappeared from where they were needed to defend us taxpaying Citizens to the safety of their nearby armed fortress.

I am a native La Mesan, lived there for almost 70 years and planned on dying there. On that disaterous night my wife and decided it was not a good idea to live in a place where the basic protection of government was unreliable and immediately made plans to move.

We left early in 2021 and now live in a place where the police encourage law abiding Citizens to defend themselves with firearms as a duty to their neighbors. A place where the police would not think twice about the ramifications, political or otherwise, including their personal injury or death to defend their charges in case of civil unrest.

So good luck La Mesan's, the next time there is a riot have Jack Shu and Colin Parent confront the angry mod and calmly convince them to return peacefully to their homes. Because that is a better plan than the one we experienced on 5/30/20.