Los Angeles - After a gunman massacred 20 children and six teachers at a school in Connecticut in December 2012, Sheriff John Hanlin was moved to write to US Vice-President Joe Biden.
It wasn’t a condolence letter.
In the wake of the shootings, he urged Biden not to “tamper with or amend” the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, which establishes the right to bear arms.
He warned that if the US established new federal gun restrictions, he would refuse to enforce them in Douglas County, Oregon, where he is the chief law enforcement officer.
“Gun control is NOT the answer to preventing heinous crimes like school shootings,” he wrote, according to news reports.
Last week Hanlin found himself facing the question again - this time at home.
A heavily armed student killed nine people and then shot himself at Douglas County’s Umpqua Community College in Roseburg.
Asked by media hours after the shooting about his support of gun rights, he said it was “not an appropriate time” to discuss them.
In fact, since the shooting - the 45th in a US school this year - the gun control debate in the United States has heated up.
US President Barack Obama has declared open war on the powerful gun rights group the National Rifle Association (NRA) he blames for lax laws that make it easy for potential killers to buy guns, and called on voters to demand change from legislators.
After school shootings in Littleton, Colorado; Newtown, Connecticut; and Isla Vista, California, communities rallied to demand stricter gun controls. But in Roseburg, the cry has been for more guns, not fewer.
Barely a day after the shooting, the family of one of the victims, 18-year-old Quinn Cooper, issued a statement that read, “if the public couldn’t have guns it wouldn’t help since sick people like this will always be able to get their hands on a gun.”
“We need to be able to protect ourselves as a community and as a nation,” the family said.
Bonnie Schaan, the mother of Roseburg shooting survivor Cheyenne Fitzgerald, told NBC News she wished her daughter had been armed. Fitzgerald’s brother told CNN that Obama should stop “running his gun agenda.”
Obama will visit victims’ families in Roseburg on Friday. Many local residents have said he - and his call for stricter gun laws - are not welcome.
“His visit here is a campaign stop,” David Jaques, publisher of the conservative Roseburg Beacon told the website Breitbart News, “for an agenda … to take away Americans’ right to own firearms.”
Just over a quarter of adults in Oregon own guns, according to a Boston University study published in June - below the national average of about a third.
But in rural areas like Douglas County, the numbers are much higher. Roseburg, a city of 21,000, is home to at least six gun dealers and several shooting ranges.
Nelson Shew, president of the Oregon State Shooting Association, estimated 90 per cent of people in Roseburg own a gun.
Federal agents found 14 firearms legally acquired by Umpqua gunman Chris Harper-Mercer and a family member. His mother had earlier bragged online about his prowess with firearms, according to reports.
By US standards, Oregon’s gun laws are relatively permissive.
Guns can be bought and carried in plain sight without a permit or registration. The state instituted its first background checks for gun buyers in a new law this spring.
Although the college campus was designated a gun-free zone, state law allows guns to be carried on university campuses.
According to reports, as many as 10 people were carrying firearms on the campus at the time of the shooting.
One of them, military veteran John Parker, told MSNBC he wanted to intervene, but didn’t out of fear of being shot by police.
“If we had our guns ready to shoot, they could think we were the bad guys,” he said.
Gun advocates including the NRA have argued the best way to prevent mass killings at schools is to arm campus security guards who can respond more quickly than police.
Many dismiss calls for tighter gun laws, saying they only restrict citizens’ ability to defend themselves.
With 310 million firearms in the US, guns are so widespread that it’s too late for laws to keep them out of the hands of killers like Harper-Mercer, Shew explained.
“How do you stop him?” he said.
“He got those guns legally.”
DPA