Guns and gun laws were the subject of discussion by Henryetta police chief Steve Norman at the Tuesday Lions club meeting.
Norman said there is a lot of discussion about the Second Amendment giving Americans the right to bear arms. He pointed out several nations banning private gun ownership ultimately had tyrannical leaders. "Our own Revolutionary War shows that some militias are effective at protecting liberty. Disarming a population in my opinion is a gateway to suicide."
guns tnHe pointed out Chicago has the toughest gun laws in the nation but there were 410 gun-related homicides in 2014. "Ninety percent of the people killed in shootings in Chicago were done with hand guns." He said pistols are more accessible.
"It's not assault rifles that are killing the majority of people, it is hand guns," he said. Norman admitted some mass shootings have been caused by assault rifles but, "hand guns are killing 50 times more people every year than assault rifles."
By comparison over 10,000 alcohol-related driving deaths happened in 2014, "but no one said anything about closing down any bars."
Norman explained a lot of the mass shootings in the headlines were at "soft targets" because, "the killer doesn't want to have a confrontation. Very rarely do they go into a police station."
He said he is opposed to teachers carrying firearms because police, "don't have time to waste," when they go into a school. "If you are in our schools where kids are and you are carrying a weapon, you only have a moment to drop that weapon."
He recalled training sessions police held at the Henryetta high school in 2013 giving officers the knowledge how to react in such a situation.
Norman said he would like to see mandatory sentencing for anyone convicted of a crime involving a firearm. "Those people need to be responsible for what they do."
Background checks on firearms owners are good but, "it's easier to sanction those good folks than come up with another solution."
Norman held up an Airsoft pellet gun that is similar in size and style to a hand gun carried by officers. A similar gun resulted in a child being killed by a police officer after that child allegedly pointed the gun at the policeman. "I was reading a grand jury indicted an officer because he should have known it was a fake gun." That indictment was overturned by a federal judge.
Lion Donnie Smith said uniform gun laws need to be established throughout the nation.
He talked about gun shows where individuals can purchase a firearm without a background check.
Norman said the gun vendors should be pushing for tougher laws there in order to make sure everyone pays their taxes on sale and perform the background checks.
"If there ever comes a day when the government calls me and says there is a list of people who have assault rifles you need to go get them, I will no longer be here. I will not be a gun collector. You probably won't find many police in Oklahoma who will do it."

See the video of Norman's talk here.