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| FILE - In this Oct. 3, 2015, file photo, Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin speaks during a news conference, in Roseburg, Ore. When President Barack Obama arrives in Roseburg Friday, Oct. 9, 2015, he will find a timber town still in mourning over the shooting that killed eight community college students and a teacher. But he will also find another deeply held emotion--seething anger over his calls for new gun restrictions. Hanlin, a visible figure at news conferences following the Roseburg killings, has said now is not the time for a debate about gun control. |
ROSEBURG,
Ore. (AP) -- When President Barack Obama arrives here Friday, he
will find a timber town still in mourning over the shooting that killed
eight community college students and a teacher. But he will also find
another deeply held emotion - seething anger over his calls for new gun
restrictions.
Only a week after a gunman
strode into a writing class and opened fire on classmates, many people
in the region known as Oregon's Bible Belt are quick to reaffirm their
opposition to stricter gun laws. At least one parent of a shooting
survivor says his family will not meet with the president, although his
daughter said she hopes to do so. And gun-rights supporters plan to
protest during Obama's visit.
"He's not wanted
here. He's coming here purely to push his garbage, and we don't want
it," said Michelle Finn, who is helping to organize the protests planned
for intersections near the small airport where Obama's helicopter is
expected to touch down.
Staunchly conservative
Douglas County is bristling with gun owners who use their weapons for
hunting, target shooting and protecting themselves. A commonly held
opinion in this area is that the solution to mass killings is more
people carrying guns, not fewer.
A single
unarmed security guard was on patrol the day of the shooting. For months
prior to the attack, faculty and staff had debated whether to arm
campus security officers, but they could not overcome their divisions on
the issue.
"The fact that the college didn't
permit guards to carry guns, there was no one there to stop this man,"
said Craig Schlesinger, pastor at the Garden Valley Church.
Schlesinger
is among the clergy who have been comforting the families of those
slain last Thursday by Christopher Harper-Mercer, who had six guns
within him on campus and eight more at the apartment he shared with his
mother.
Nine other people were wounded.
Doctors said Thursday the one with the most severe injuries - Julie
Woodworth, 19 - is awake and moves her eyes, but she has not yet spoken
and faces a long road to recovery. One of the five bullets that struck
her hit her brain.
The gunman fatally shot himself in front of his victims after he was shot by police.
Sheriff
John Hanlin has become a symbol of the region's rejection of tighter
gun control. After 20 children and six adults were killed in 2012 at
Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, Hanlin sent Vice
President Joe Biden a letter saying he would never comply with any
gun-control law from the Obama administration.
Hanlin,
a visible figure at news conferences following the Roseburg killings,
has said now is not the time for a debate about gun control.
Immediately
after the shooting, Obama said he intended to politicize the Roseburg
attack to put pressure on Congress to adopt gun restrictions - a
statement that infuriated much of this town of 22,000 people about 180
miles south of Portland.
Some families are divided, even those directly affected by the rampage.
Stacy
Boylan, father of shooting survivor Ana Boylan, told Fox News that his
family would not attend an event with the president because of Obama's
views on guns.
But Ana Boylan told The Associated Press she would indeed meet Obama if she has a chance to do so in private.
"I
do have a few questions and I'd like to see him," Boylan said. Her
mother, Deanna Boylan, said her daughter wants to ask the questions in
private, not in a news story.
Trying to tamp
down suggestions that Obama would receive a cold reception, Douglas
County commissioners released a statement Thursday welcoming him.
"Regardless
of our differences with the president on policy issues, we await the
president's arrival and look forward to his show of support" for a
grieving community that is enduring "immeasurable" heartache, said Susan
Morgan, chairwoman of the commission.
Roseburg
leaders also sought to reassure Obama that he is welcome, saying in a
statement earlier in the week they would "extend him every courtesy."
The
president has never been popular in this corner of southern Oregon.
Barely a third of the county voted for him in the last election.
He will not be the first national leader to confront resistance to gun control in Roseburg.
In
1968, while campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination,
Robert F. Kennedy told a hostile crowd that it was too easy for people
who should not own a gun to buy one.
"Does
that make any sense that you should put rifles and guns in the hands of
people who have long criminal records, of people who are insane, or of
people who are mentally incompetent or people who are so young they
don't know how to handle rifles or guns?" Kennedy said. He lost the
Oregon primary the next day and was fatally shot in Los Angeles less
than two weeks later.
The White House says
Obama will meet privately with victims' families. His official schedule
shows no indication that he will appear in public and talk about gun
control, as RFK did 47 years ago.
Laurie
Nielsen, 55, is among those who think Obama should stay away. The way
she sees it, the president is coming to exploit the Roseburg shootings
for his own political advantage.
"I don't think he belongs here. Not at this time," Nielsen said. "It's really none of his business to be here."
