Page 28 - Sonoma County Gazette March 2018.indd

OPINION: Guns – Personal Rights, Laws, & Impact on Others
I’ve commented on this type of situation before, but my focus was mostly the sound of the guns from duck hunters, not target practice shooting. Either way, it is important to express the effect of having guns going off from hunting and target practice around your home and how this can affect some people.
The less the reigning president does about climate change, the more we have to do to attempt to wrestle this bull to the ground.
I know it is legal and I want to share how this impacts my family’s life, again this is my experience - others have different experiences. I understand gun owners and hunters are legally allowed to hunt/shoot a gun (provided you have the landowner’s permission) if you maintain a “safety zone” of at least 150 yards from the nearest house/structure. Strange because I think some
It is so hard for us to deal with the prospect of our own possible demise that we’d just rather not think about it. It’s too overwhelming.
rifle bullets can travel much farther than that these days, perhaps this law is outdated.
But the temperature is rising, the carbon load is increasing, and our denial remains the same. We have to end our reliance on fossil fuels, some say by 2030, others by 2050, but either way we better start doing it soon.
I read that it is negligent to fire a gun blindly into the dark at night, even
if you are within the required “safety zone” I mentioned. Here is more information on the Small Arm Device Ordinance which outlines what is and is not legal regarding shooting and firearms in Sonoma County if you want to read more: https://library.municode.com/ca/sonoma_county/codes/code_of_ ordinances?nodeId=CH19ASMARDEOR (refer to section 19A-5 for restrictions of use in safety zones)
Building more freeways is probably not going to contribute much to the solution, not that DT’s infrastructure plan promises much on that front except more costs for commuters, in the form of tolls.
One morning this year during duck season at 7AM there was a lot of gunfire that sounded like it was close by my house, probably 15 shots in a span of 15 minutes, and I spent 2 hours trying to calm my dog down from a panic attack from the gunshots and my wife was a nervous wreck too. I couldn’t get my dog to go out to go to the bathroom because he was too afraid to go outside because of all of the gunshots going off. My dog has terrible panic attacks when he hears a gunshot, even off in the distance. He literally goes berserk and tries
Praxis Peace sponsored a talk last month by Mark Jacobson, the Stanford scientist who has shown that we could, if we would summon the political will, transition to renewables by 2030. Wow. See his website, The Solutions Project, for details.
to run and starts shaking and hyperventilating uncontrollably, it can last for hours and it is very traumatic for him and for me.
May Boeve, the co-founder of the influential 350.org is a graduate of Sonoma Valley High School now living in San Francisco. She spoke on February 13 about the necessity for action on the local level and the many things we can do individually as well to help curtail rising carbon. Earthcare director John Connelly created a one-page list of positive actions we all can take that was well-received.
My wife has a highly sensitive nervous system and has an autonomic response to these gunshots around our home and it can have a very negative effect on our experience living here.
And February 20, a much smaller group enthusiastically responded to an excellent presentation by attorney Sharon Duggan, formerly of Glen Ellen and now residing in Oakland, who is one of the founders of Our Children’s Trust, an organization created on behalf of (and with) the young adults who are going to be stuck with the mess that lies ahead.
The approach of Our Children’s Trust is legal, based on constitutional law and the doctrine of the public trust:
I understand this is all legal and that hunters/gun owners have a right to
do what they do, and it is also important to communicate that it does have an effect on the residents and domestic animals (and wildlife) in the surrounding areas.
We moved up to the Sebastopol area a few years ago hoping to have more peace and quiet and get away from the hustle/bustle of the urban Bay Area. We have lived all over in different states and different countries (both urban and rural areas) and this is the first place I’ve lived where I wake up to gunshots from hunting so close to my home. Sometimes I don’t even know if it is gunfire from hunting, target practice or from some kind of criminal activity - either way it is unnerving and unsettling.
Rooted in Roman law, the public trust doctrine recognizes the public right to many natural resources including “the air, running water, the sea and its shore.” [It] requires the state, to hold in trust designated resources for the benefit of the people. Traditionally, the public trust applied to commerce and fishing in navigable waters, but its uses were expanded in California in 1971 to include fish, wildlife, habitat and recreation. (Water Education Foundation)
We live in a time where mass shootings are a regular occurrence in the US and I don’t like hearing gunfire near my home. It is not a good feeling. We walk on the Joe Rodota Trail every day and it is jarring to hear gunshots so close because we also have a friend who was severely wounded by a stray bullet from a nearby hunter’s gun when she was a child while hiking with her family, it almost killed her.
Did you even know? I did not.
I wish that hunting/target shooting was not allowed so close to residential areas and public hiking trails. I don’t know how many others feel this way but I felt it was important to add my voice here and I hope others will do the same, whatever your perspective may be.
Our Children’s Trust is suing the president and the federal government for failure to protect the atmosphere as would be required both by constitutional law guaranteeing the right to the pursuit of happiness and the public trust. A stable environment, says OCT, is essential for a stable social and personal life.
I would also like to advocate for hunters and target shooters to consider doing this activity farther away from residential areas so that the people and animals living in these areas do not have to be traumatized by the sound of gunfire where they live.
This is extraordinary. Twenty-one children have signed onto this lawsuit. They now range in age from nine to 20, and they are active participants in communicating the urgency of the situation and their plea that the government take up its appropriate role of protecting the public trust.
Christian C., Graton
We’ve been hearing about the commons, another old concept closely related to this issue of the government’s responsibility. Although unfortunately it derives from feudalism, the idea that the commons belongs to all of us and must be shared poses a radical challenge to our capitalistic modus vivendi. Indeed, critics of the system within which we must live have been asserting that capitalism, with its emphasis on growth, is inherently a root cause of climate change. And certainly if you consider the Republican defense of
But you know all this of course.
In Sonoma, we’ve been bustling with climate-related activities.
The Climate Coalition continues to meet monthly on the fourth Thursday at the First Congregational Church, now under the hearty leadership of Jennifer Palladini.
Earthcare, the church’s environmental group, has just offered two dynamic presentations, both by women with roots in Sonoma.
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Are we all so addicted to this economic system, which relies so heavily on a thriving tourism-and-wine industry that we cannot conceive of a way of life that does not depend on gobbling up resources like locusts? Perhaps, as Rob Hopkins of Transition Towns claims in the movie Demain, this new way of life, more attuned to relationships with each other and the earth, could be fun! Figuring out how to get there – and draw down all that excess carbon from the sky – is the task before us. Spring forth!
the rights of fossil fuel companies to keep pumping their product out of the ground, you must agree that our economic system seems to preclude sharing, replaces collaboration with competition, exalts the rich over the poor, and tends to enslave “those less fortunate” – who may be “those less cruel.”