The Trigger Word at UCSB
At UCSB, you’re more likely to hear about trigger-warnings than trigger discipline. The space between being pro-gun and anti-gun is confusing, and the college environment doesn’t help. Is there a middle ground where gun culture and college culture can meet?
The I.V. Killings
I was annoyed that my phone’s buzzing was so audible over the movie. At intermission I read the text from my roommate. “Don’t come home, there are five people shot two dead.”
The Isla Vista Killings of Mar. 23, 2014 were a surreal event. They challenged the UCSB community and left a permanent hole that couldn’t be filled with the usual partying. It separated everyone by their mortality and united everyone by their community.
Later that night I took my weekly position at UCSB’s radio station, KCSB, and DJ’d the most somber episode of GARAGELAND ever produced. I read some Modernist poetry, I announced the songs with a muted expression and I tried to think about what was next.
That tinge of deep emotion continues to this day, but its effects seem less focused. When Richard Martinez, father of slain student Christopher Martinez led the ‘Not One More’ campaign for increased gun control, there was a solidarity at UCSB. Since the months after the killings, that solidarity has devolved into a stigmatization, where being pro-gun means an automatic association with the Isla Vista murders.
“There’s definitely a stigma around pro-gun students,” my friend Naum Milyavskiy told me. “I’m not sure about how the UCSB environment differs from others, but I do believe guns are a lot less prevalent here than most college communities. This is because I’ve seen little incidents with them, aside from the major shooting that happened, of course.”
Gauchotactical
I wanted to understand this separation between gun and college culture. The most obvious bridge between the two was in Gauchotactical. Gauchotactical is a student veteran led target shooting club at UCSB. It emphasizes the safe handling of firearms in a competitive environment. Members often compete in speed shooting competitions, where they hit targets in a dynamic range environment as fast and accurately as possible.
My first encounter with the club was on Oct. 27, 2014 at their new member meeting, held in the office-space atmosphere of the University Center’s Lobero room. I’ve enjoyed target shooting ever since my high school friend first invited me to the Burro Canyon gun range. A competitive target shooting club at UCSB wasn’t too alien from those casual skeet shooting trips that I used to look forward to.
The meeting began with a half-serious question – is anyone here to protest us? The resultant chuckles were dampened by the concerned expressions of the uninitiated. If there was a protester, they were certainly outnumbered.
The defensive tone, combined with the mundanity of email sign-up sheets and schedule organization diffused the taboo generated by a room full of pro-gun students. It was a club, not a secret meeting of the ‘gun-nut crazies.’ I didn’t join the club.
Four months later, I contacted one of Gauchotactical’s leaders, Aaron Barruga, for an interview. There was a standoff between us. There was a weary sense about his responses to my questions, as if he’d heard them all before and was burned by them all before. It seemed that to Barruga, I was one of those meeting protestors, clammed up in the back row, ready to exploit the club for a story.
According to Barruga, Gauchotactical is “very hesitant” to reach out to students. For Barruga, “it seems like most students at UCSB will be prone to negative opinions of firearms due to last year’s shooting, irresponsible gun owners, and the inherent anti-gun culture in California. We don’t have the energy or the desire to counter those beliefs because it’s a losing battle.”
Goleta Valley Gun & Supply
It seemed that Gauchotactical wasn’t there to be the ambassador of the pro-gun point of view, so I ventured out to Goleta Valley Gun & Supply for more answers.
Bill, former bouncer and current salesman at Goleta Valley Gun & Supply maintained an authority over the space while the owner Rick rung up some customers.
According to Bill, there wasn’t a top-selling gun in particular. The store’s variety seemed to indicate that.
He showed me a black powder pistol that they just got in. “It’s like a pirate’s gun,” he remarked, “check out the business end.” The barrel was large enough to accommodate an egg, and Bill chuckled at the novelty of it. It was just one of the many used and new firearms available at the small shop.
An impressively tactical looking rifle caught my eye. It seemed like something that someone would want to ban. According to Bill it was a Ruger 10/22, a small caliber rimfire target rifle that a previous owner housed in a customized stock. It resembled something the military would issue, but was actually better suited for squirrel hunting than man-stopping.
Politics were a touchy subject at the shop. A certain anonymous customer took a seat near the pepper spray and unloaded his conspiracy theories: ‘King Obama the Muslim, commissioner of FEMA death camps and guillotine enthusiast, is stripping our freedoms and destroying the U.S. of A. .’
It was a surreal tirade against the government, and the store owner, Rick, didn’t seem to be put off by the paranoid exclamations of his customer base. He didn’t affirm them either.
Rick, who only gave his first name, was quick to shake my hand but slow to answer my questions. His stance behind the register, flanked by a molding of vintage ammunition boxes, revealed his history operating a gun shop in anti-gun California.
“Twenty years ago I didn’t think we’d be in business today,” Rick said with a pessimistic tone, as he lambasted California’s increasingly strict gun control measures.
Gun Control in California
California has some of the strictest firearm laws in the nation. California’s “Unsafe Handgun Act” was recently upheld in federal court. The act mandates that all new handguns sold in the state must have certain safety functions added on to their original design.
These functions, like an indicator for when the gun is loaded, and a trigger stop for when the ammunition magazine is removed, are meant to make handguns more difficult to fire accidentally.
Other features, like microstamping, are meant to make handguns more traceable.
Microstamping works by engraving a microscopic stamp on the handgun’s firing pin, which is the part the strikes and ignites the cartridge. This stamp imprints a mark on the cartridge case like a fingerprint, so when the gun is fired, the ejected casing can be linked to the gun.
Microstamping legislation was passed in 2007 and officially went into effect in 2013, which means any new model firearm sold in California must have the microstamping technology.
Opponents of microstamping, such as the California Police Chiefs Association, say that the technology is largely unproven and can be easily defeated by criminals.
Microstamping isn’t necessary in other states, so some manufacturers like Ruger and Smith & Wesson have refused to sell any new model firearms in California.
Rick sighed as he remarked on the effects of these laws. “Customers see a gun in a magazine and they call up and ask for it, but I can’t get it,” he said.
Rick then pulled out a dusty binder from under the counter and proctored the firearm safety certificate test for a customer. The test, effective since January, is necessary before buying a handgun, rifle or shotgun. Prior to January, a test was only required before buying a handgun.
The test was multiple choice, and the customer didn’t seem bothered by my presence as he filled it out on the counter next to the Glocks. “It’s pretty obvious stuff,” Bill said as Rick tallied up the answers. The customer seemed pretty confident, but one of the age restriction questions had him worried; he couldn’t remember if you had to be 18 or 21 to buy a handgun. Rick muttered “perfect score,” signed the firearm safety certificate card and handed it to the customer.
Goleta Valley Gun & Supply seemed very distant from college culture. It was the stereotypical gun shop that wasn’t afraid to be the stereotypical gun shop. My presence as a curious student reaching out to a foreign group was more of a novelty for Bill and Rick. While the store catered to some UCSB students in Gauchotatctical, Rick seemed indifferent to the cultural exchange.
“They’re [Gauchotactical] doing everything within the limits of the law,” Rick said bluntly.
I asked Bill what could be done to improve this political environment. He straightened up some boxes of .45 cartridges and replied, “Nothing.”