By Nathan Levit, Mallory Williamson, and Rose Gilbert
The morning of our departure to the Grand Canyon State was marked by the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history, the killing of 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue. 2000 miles away in southeastern Arizona, the slaughter brought to the forefront an issue that had lingered in background for 7 years: guns.
In 2011, Jared Loughner came to ‘Congress on your Corner,’ an event hosted by Rep. Gabby Giffords in a Safeway parking lot just outside Tucson., shooting Giffords in the head and killing six other people. Ron Barber, Giffords’ district director who eventually succeeded her in Congress, was shot in the face and thigh.
We met Barber just steps from the Safeway entrance, the site where he and Giffords were shot. Leaning on a cane, Barber remembered the day vividly, describing how the horror of the event “traumatized” Tucsonans, and that “we had significant mental health issues not only in the people who were here that morning, but also in the community at large.”
Barber did not mince words when it came to gun control. There was an armed “good guy with a gun” at the scene, said Barber, but due to the confusion at the scene of the crime “[the] good guy had the good sense not to do anything… more.” Indeed, Barber fears that more innocent people could have been shot due to the chaos a second gunman could have caused.
Not all Arizonans agree. Suzy Burros is an instructor for the Sahuarita chapter of The Well Armed Woman, a group dedicated to bringing together female gun owners. She believes a ‘good guy with a gun’ is a powerful way for women and men to protect themselves and those around them. “People should be responsibly armed, because you never know,” Burros said. “With the shooting in Pittsburgh, maybe if there had been an armed congregant… then I think that somebody maybe could have helped out.”
A week after the Pittsburgh shooting, the victims have been laid to rest. President Trump didn’t pause his campaign schedule, as previous leaders have after tragic events. And in Arizona, most voters focused on border security and healthcare, not guns.
