Watch the full KCRA 3 documentary ‘Liberty and Limits: Guns in California’

Watch the full KCRA 3 documentary ‘Liberty and Limits: Guns in California’

Two events in California were decades apart but left a lasting impact on both sides of the gun debate.

Good evening. Recent national events from political violence to mass shootings to legal decisions have made *** mark in history. Two California events, one in 1967, the other in 1989, have led us to where we are today in terms of guns and regulation. KCRA is taking *** look at those events and their impact now in our documentary Liberty and Limits. I fell in love with shooting. I fell in love with it was *** martial art to me and being able to use *** firearm. And and use it well and and being able to, you know, work on my groupings and my breathing and my stance. My name is Rob Young and I was *** survivor of the Cleveland Elementary School shooting in 1989. I’ll send you these so you can use them, um, but let me go back to the beginning. OK, so, here we’re looking at long-term trends in firearm homicide and suicide for the country, um, beginning with the start of the 21st century. My name is Garen Wintemute. I’m an emergency medicine physician at UC Davis. I’ve always been interested in looking upstream at the events that bring people through the doors in the emergency department, and I saw lots of firearm violence and was interested in the possibility of prevention. I never blame the gun. I never blame. I realized that it’s just *** tool. It’s important for people to accept that first statement that you made that guns are designed to kill. They’re *** tool. Put tools in people’s hands and they’ll use them. There is no question but that California has affected how the country thinks about guns and gun policy. Seconds matter. And the only equalizer in that game is going to be *** good guy with *** gun. Two occurrences here in California set in motion chains of events that we’re still dealing with today. One was the Cleveland schoolyard massacre, and the other was the occupation of the Capitol by the Black Panthers in the 1960s. We’re still dealing with those. I have these Black Panthers up here with guns on the 2nd floor. Is this the way the racist government works? Don’t let *** man, uh, exercise his, his, his constitutional rights. They never gave the party credit for anything. We were the boogeymen. It’s become, um, you know, *** very complicated, interesting area of law. Is it about who has the guns, who has the guns, you know, it’s plain to see. It’s what we call *** sentinel event. It’s not just that the event happened, it’s that that event was in everybody’s living room. There’s another one in California, and that was the mass shooting at Cleveland School in Stockton. Shortly before 120 Tuesday. *** lone gunman, Patrick Edward Purdy, walked onto the playground at Cleveland Elementary armed with 2 pistols and *** semi-automatic rifle. 18 bullets came through my wall. The whole room turned white. Mass shootings were not *** thing. School shootings were unheard of. I tried to find out where they were where they were hit. I tried to stop the bleeding. Her leg was shattered. All her bones in her leg was shattered, but this year there’s an all-out push by certain lawmakers to ban all semi-automatic military-type weapons. From my cold dead hands. Like this one, the Soviet designed AK-47 assault rifle. There is absolutely no reason why out on the street today *** civilian should be carrying *** loaded weapon. The Constitution says the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. You can turn back in time and you can say right there. It’s where the course of events change. We constantly have people here in the Black Panther Party museum we have *** lot of school groups that come here. We also have professional groups that, uh, come here. Sometimes you know all the different ethnicities and now we have our first brick and mortar space in all of its 30 years where people can come and. Be submerged in this history. People want to know this information and more importantly, they wanna know why they never knew anything about it or had the wrong narrative in the first place. Oakland was *** predominantly black community, at least the community that I grew up in. I grew up in East Oakland. Merritt was always full of people and so yeah it was really *** wonderful place to grow up. Mother had Huey over for breakfast or for lunch and that’s where I met him and that’s where I became um familiar with the party. So the original name of the Black Panther Party was the Black Panther Party for Self-defense using the icon of *** Panther that only acts in self-defense, never offensively. There was an alternative message that the FBI that. Opponents that the police would would say out there that it was just this violent organization and all they wanted to do is radically create violence. Newton was *** hero in his hometown, *** hoodlum to outsiders. He was accused of murder, of embezzlement. He organized breakfast for poor kids and protected the elderly, and when he and 5 other Black Panthers stormed the state assembly fully armed and protesting gun. Control detractors called him *** radical. Supporters *** revolutionary. The FBI labeled the Black Panther Party the single biggest threat to the internal security of the United States. Back in those days, the early days of the party, you had to attend all political education classes. I worked on the original free breakfast program in 1969 at Saint Augustine Church, which is now *** national program in, in our school districts, you know. And that’s one of the many things that I’m really proud of. This is our 10th anniversary newspaper. This is *** special issue of the paper. There’s *** whole different picture that people don’t normally hear, I think, right? Exactly. And that’s why the Black Panther Party created their own newspaper with *** um distribution of 250,000 *** week. After the Watts uprising in ’65, you had cop watches in LA that was already happening, but the party was the first ones that said we’re gonna do it armed and within our, our legal rights when they locked the doors. We’re gonna let you into the buildings. You have no other recourse but to take it to the streets or to the plaza. I had heard very little, but I did have the imagery of, uh, berets, black leather jackets and guns. Black and brown people were getting brutalized, killed in the community. Black people didn’t know their rights, so he would go out and patrol the police. Black people reached *** point where they’re saying no more. No more. If you shoot me, I’m shooting back. In fact, when Panthers patrolled the police, yes they had guns, but yes, they had law books. That law book has been dissected out of history, you know, because we would read the laws to the to the cops. Panther speaks for itself. No more brothers in jail. When the Panthers went and provided political education, they provided arms and they organized them and rallied them around the 10 point program, right? That was extremely powerful. That was also *** red flag for legislators who didn’t like to see black people with guns exercising their constitutional rights. I’m not an alarmist. I think I’m very much of *** realist, but I am sensitive to the phone calls I have received from those who are seeking uh. Uh, urgency in the, in the passage of this bill. If it was not for the policeman with his gun, with his club, with his gas chamber, ultimately backing all that up. Who would have any According in the mass media, all you saw were angry looking black men in leather jackets and guns, but these same men that they would depict in that way were actually up at 5 in the morning feeding hungry children every morning or, um, working in the free health clinic or you know, any one of these other 65 survival programs. So by design that was not shown in the media. It didn’t show women at one point. 2/3 of the membership in the Black Panther Party were women. Is there any law against carrying *** loaded weapon in the assembly chamber, for instance? No, that is one of the purposes of the. Milford bill to make *** misdemeanor to carry *** loaded weapon. One district attorney has asked me to expedite the passage of this bill, but um, no, what we realize is that politicians are politicians and they will constantly move. To take out any kind of black resistance that exists in this country, and there is *** genuine feeling among some law enforcement officials who have consulted with me. That this bill is going to be badly needed and There’s no provision in the Constitution that looks like the 2nd Amendment. So it starts out *** well regulated militia being necessary to the security of *** free state, and that’s just sort of an assertion of fact. And then what follows is the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, the second part of the clause, and so this has always posed this question to what extent does this assertion about the militia, what we might call the preamble or prefatory clause to the Second Amendment, inform the scope of the right of the people that’s referenced in the second part of the clause. Let’s be clear, black people have had guns. *** lot of us who moved to California, migrated in the 40s, 50s, and 60s, came from rural parts of the South, Louisiana and Texas. *** lot of folks had guns. They were hunters. The Civil War, you saw *** massive disarmament of African Americans in the South um by sort of former Confederate uh governments. My Lord. And so you saw *** lot of rhetoric at the time saying that an individual right to protect yourself, in particular, um, rights of African Americans to protect themselves against marauding whites such as the Ku Klux Klan, um, that this was an important right that ought to be protected my pilgrim journey. The police didn’t like that, so they got with their councilperson and the name was um Malford, and Mulford drew up *** law, was gonna introduce it in Sacramento. Huey heard about it and sent, sent 30 party members to Sacramento. They were armed at that time because you could carry guns in the open, right? And I remember when the Black Panthers occupied the gallery of the Senate legally carrying open carrying firearms. I have these Black Panthers up here with guns on the 2nd floor. It was shocking for people to see the the black community to see black folks with guns. It was also shocking to the police that there was an escalation in this fight for liberation. Also, the Second Amendment of the Constitution guarantees the citizen *** right to bear arms on public property. We were an open carry state and there was real fear that something might happen. I saw *** group of approximately 4. Male negroes all carrying weapons of one sort or another with *** smaller group behind them. Wait *** minute, wait *** minute. Try and solve the problems that have to be solved among people of goodwill, and there’s certainly nothing that can be done in the line of goodwill when Americans have guns, uh, uh, with the even the implied idea that those guns might be directed against them. Sounds absurd, but there are plenty of states where those restrictions still don’t exist and. Armed people can go into *** state capitol and have in recent years, Michigan and Wisconsin, carrying ARs. It’s legal. You don’t know the Constitution, right? Sure we do. We’re well aware of the Constitution. You have no right to take my gun away from me. You bring the Constitution right, right. It’s not just that the event happened, it’s that via TV and the newspaper at the time that event was in everybody’s living room. Why do you believe the legislature is is racist? Don’t you know you’re part of it and you’re obviously it’s *** white system. There’s media attention in this now pay attention to what we’re actually talking about. That shock value does something for actually making the Black Panther Party popular all over the world. Speaker Protem, uh, asked me to clear the floor in the rear, and I went to the rear with all the. Uh, cameramen were there from the news media and told the people to leave. They had no right to be in there and they indicated their constitutional right was being violated. This is the pamphlet that the man presented me with. It’s called *** Statement of the Black Panther Party for Self-defense on the Mulford Act, now pending before the California legislature. We were an open carry state. And there was real fear that something might happen and we took open carry off the table. The security at the Capitol that day, they was confused on what to do because they weren’t breaking the law. So they made up *** law, you know, to prevent groups like the Black Panther Party from carrying weapons in the public. I would hope though that we could begin our labors immediately. The Black Panther Party for Self-defense calls upon the American people in general, and the black people in particular to take full note of the racist California legislature, which is now considering legislation aimed at keeping the black people disarmed and powerless. That was also *** red flag for. Legislators who didn’t like to see black people with guns exercising their constitutional rights. The Mulford Act would control the use of arms, especially loaded weapons, and would prohibit them. These men seem to have loaded weapons with them. They’re there primarily, or they were there this morning, I guess, to protest *** bill that Mr. Mulford from Alameda County is having before the Criminal Procedure Committee this afternoon. So we were going to protest this law, but it was the first time. Anything like that has happened in American history, especially with Afro-Americans involved with guns and the Capitol and so forth. From my conversation with legislators today, there is great concern about the incident yesterday. There is anger among some of my colleagues that The dignity of our chamber, the highest lawmaking body in the state of California, would be so interrupted. And then they go on to say the Black Panther Party for Self-defense believes that the time has come for black people to arm themselves against this terror, the terror of the white people presumably, before it is too late, and the pending Mulford Act brings the hour of doom one step nearer. National Rifle Association announcement that white citizens or citizens should arm themselves for guerrilla warfare, which I submit is additional emphasis on my suggestion that we need this legislation. It’s what we call in public health *** sentinel event. You can, you can turn back in time and you can say right there is where the course of events. There’s another one in California, and that was the, the mass shooting at uh Cleveland School in Stockton. We’ll go for the regular agenda. We first started our group Cleveland School Remembers because um our legislators are not doing what they need to be doing. All around the country we had all kinds of uh activities that that spoke to the Parkland shooting, and it looked like people were finally going to listen. Diane found the most perfect person to rework our website. Our other amazing board member, Kristen Reneker, woohoo. Big thank yous for taking this on and thank you to Vicky for her excellent first rendition. I think the most frustrating thing is that After *** few days of, or sometimes not even days, hours of, of uh television news, people forget it. If I am walking and alive, I need to do something. We work with *** lot of um groups together because we just feel like. Just one less, we are. Aghast that they have forgotten about us. We were the first modern day big shooting. School was good and we felt protected at school. Give me *** little bit about Stockton and it was very diverse. Uh, it was fun for me. I didn’t know any different, you know, being *** little kid, it was fun for me to have friends that were teaching us other languages. Here in Stockton it’s like everyone’s different, you know, you have Cambodian, Hmong, Americans, every, you know, *** lot of other, um. Uh, community and students and you just see the difference. Attending Cleveland Elementary at that time we had an influx of *** lot of the Southeast Asian families that were coming here from Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos. I mean we had the Filipino community and Mexican American community and uh you know, Chinese and Japanese and so we always had *** diverse population here at that time. I’m Sue Rothman and I was *** kindergarten teacher at Cleveland Elementary School. I’m Judy Weldon and I was *** second grade teacher at Cleveland Elementary School in 1989. I love you. We love you. They were still arriving in the 1980s, 1985, like I think seemed to be *** big influx and so the children that I had in second grade, *** lot of them hadn’t been to, um, school in the US yet. *** million people have tried to leave Vietnam by boat, and of those, only 1 out of every 10 has ever made it. The rest have drowned, and killed by pirates, or been forced to turn back. My father put us on *** boat and tried to escape the country because it was after the war in Vietnam. He was in the army and After it ended, everyone left and wanted *** future for us, so he put us on *** boat. Whatever the size of the little boats, they have one characteristic. They’ve crowded as many people out as they possibly can. So with the preschool program, we were working with *** whole variety of different cultures at the time, and I believe it was about 70% of our student population was Southeast Asian. In Vietnam, you wake up, you go. To the market that’s next door. You take the kids to school that’s, you know, nearby, and you don’t see much diversity. The Catholic Charities Refugee Immigrant Service is trying to help. Sponsors are needed to provide the refugees with assistance in getting settled into the American way of life, and it was just *** lot of fun. They were my friends, you know. I didn’t see skin color back then. Obviously it wasn’t about that. They were just peers. 85% of all Indo-Chinese refugees in California begin their lives on public assistance, and housing is generally substandard. *** climate of resentment against the newcomers was born. We’re going to have *** Vietnam War right here between them and us. We’re very unhappy about the influx of Asians that is being thrust upon our people here in California. I saw things happen at the grocery store where Asian of. Any um ethnicity Asian people would be um moved aside people would cut in front of them. I did see that and my father thought he’s like *** working man when we first came we got assistance but he was like this is not the way I want for my children. He wanted to make *** life for us for himself. Existing social services were impacted at that time the poor economy, the fact that we had very um. Poor employment aspects for our own minority and disadvantaged people, the poor people, didn’t help that situation, so scapegoating came out. Stockton was welcoming because, like Sue said, we had welcomed or the city had welcomed many others, but on *** 1 to 1 finite level I think there was, you know, there was pushback from individuals. Vehicle on fire and Stadium also shots fired. shots fired. Yes ma’am. Automatic weapon fire. Mass shootings were not *** thing. School shootings were unheard of. I don’t know, ma’am. I’m *** block away. I’m not going to get that close. And this was *** case where *** man walked onto the campus, an adult walked onto the campus of *** school with an AK-type semi-automatic rifle and intentionally targeted. Children. What followed was about 2 minutes of horror. Police say Purdy emptied *** drum of 75 bullets into the schoolyard. It was *** cold, foggy Stockton morning and if you’re familiar with Stockton, you know all the waterways that we have here so that they call it Tulli fog and it was, you know, that morning was no different. We were about to get ready to go to recess. It was like the younger age first. They get recess first and then for us 3rd graders it was later, but, um, we were just *** normal morning of school. My mom would walk me to school in the mornings and then she would continue on to Saint Joseph’s Medical Center where she worked. At the time, the school has *** kind of like an L shape is how I remember, like L and the playground is in the middle. She walks me up to. The back gate and I remember her telling me that she had *** bad feeling about that day she just had *** this this gut feeling. And my classroom has *** window like me looking to you and that view of the playground. Later that morning during our first recess, uh, we get out and we’re playing kickball and the kickball diamond, um, if you look behind the kickball diamond was right at the corner of that the black top there it was just *** painted kickball diamond. The morning class had just left to the for the lunch room. We’re playing our game. And I remember some commotion behind us. And what that was was the gunman parking his station wagon right right along the curb line here about halfway down and lighting it on fire. Patrick Purdy parked his car on Stadium Drive behind the school. It appears that he probably fused up the, uh, the, the Molotov cocktail in the center of the front seat and walked off. Why he did that. We will never know. Vehicle on fire in the 100 block of West Stadium. Also shots fired. It was recess time, 11:15 a.m. *** gunman in battle fatigues and flak jackets descended on the back schoolyard. There was *** big bang sound, so it sounded like somebody was working on the roof. So that type of sound, um, distinctly I remember was just *** like bang bang bang. He walked to the schoolyard and started firing and then all of *** sudden just chaos erupted. And what that was was, you know, the gunman walking in with his AK-47, walked onto our campus, took *** kneeling stance right on the other side of the portables over there, and he opened fire on us as we played at recess that day. Armed with two handguns and an AK-47 assault rifle, he opened fire. At least 60 bullets sprayed the schoolyard. The choice of victims was not random. Purdy attacked Southeast Asian immigrants out of *** festering sense of racial resentment and hatred, and he attacked children, little kids, out of his own insecurity and cowardice. We believe because those children were of *** different race and ethnicity than he was, um, killed and injured *** large number of them. All the kids were like in the playground, but um. It was odd because it’s like they were all together playing normal and then everyone started like running away. And disappearing. I remember the sound of the gunfire again, not registering that we were being shot at. What followed was about 2 minutes of horror. Police say Purdy emptied *** drum of 75 bullets into the schoolyard. What was your first indication to either of you that something was wrong? Bullets came through my wall. 18 bullets came through my wall. The whole room turned white. From the, the, um, sheet sheetrock that was exploding. I ran off kind of towards the side here and I ran towards *** handball wall that’s on the the blacktop and there’s tetherball poles around the the handball wall. It came through the metal door. It came through the walls. 8 bullets went on as far as we know, to the next classroom, and 2 bullets went through that classroom and out the front of the building. As I turned. There was *** young boy that was shot and killed just *** few feet from me. I watched him go down. I knew him. Uh, again, not registering what was going on. I just, it, it was just terrifying. And then I also saw another student over at the door trying to get in. They couldn’t get in type trying to get back into the building, so that’s what I saw and then I felt that I saw him on the portable of where my sister’s class is. And as I turned around again to run, my feet were swept out from under me and I was *** round going through my right foot. How many shots were fired? *** lot. I mean it was like *** semi-automatic weapon going off, you know, you put *** clip in. And you hit *** burst of shots, you expand it, take it out, put another one in, another burst, take that out, put another one in, another few bursts. He was not talking. He wasn’t yelling. He was just, um, *** very straight faced. He wasn’t smiling or frowning or anything. He didn’t look like he was real angry and he was just standing there with his gun. My cousin got shot. On the day and uh my sister was playing with her in the playground and she decided um they were playing jump rope and she decided hey let’s go play something else and in that matter of minutes that she left she would have gotten you know shot or possibly killed. I went to get out of the teacher’s room to go find my students and somebody. Kind of barred me at the doorway and said, you know, we need to wait, we need to lock down the office. Well, I pushed aside and crossed the, there was *** small yard between the, the office building and the main classroom building, so I went in and. Um, by that time, teachers and aides had already started bringing injured students out to the front lawn, um, for triage. I felt *** slap against my chest and that was ***, *** bullet hitting the pavement in front of me breaking apart and then, um. Going directly into my chest, and I still have it to this day. At that point, the children started flooding into the school from the playground, and somebody, I don’t know who it was, got *** bag of clean underwear that we keep in the kindergarten area for accidents and we used that to stop the bleeding as the children were were flowing in. I remember wood kind of exploding over my head. The bullets were coming through the wall, and we had *** substitute teacher that morning and she’s waving at us to to get into the classroom and the shooting was still going on. Uh, as the kids were running in, I remember getting under my desk and laying face down and put my hands over my head. It was really loud, um, gunfire was still going on outside, bullets were coming through our walls. I remember sunlight piercing through our classroom and the drywall dust kind of floating through the air. And then finally the um first responders came and um. They carried children out to the front lawn for triage. Parents by the hundreds flocked to the school in terror. Teachers and volunteers worked from lists of the wounded, wounded who had been taken to 6 area hospitals up to 20 miles away. So when we arrived in the cafeteria, they distributed *** list, and on that list it said that my sister was deceased. She was shot and she was deceased. So even in that part, having to tell my parents. It was, it was chaos. So then we found out that she was injured but we didn’t know like um how or what. They took me to *** doctor’s hospital in Lodi, uh which is now part of the whole um Lodi Memorial West. The young victims came by ambulance or were wheeled into surgery. Some came by meta flight helicopters and medical teams were busy in every emergency room. My mom gets on the phone and the nurse says, we need you and your husband to come here. Your, your son’s been injured. And my mom asked, she says, is he OK? And the, the nurse, you know, they’re still working on me. Are they scared still? They seem to be, they’ve been, they’re kind of quiet. The last victim came to Saint Joseph’s at about 4 this afternoon, only after the girl’s mother noticed *** piece of shrapnel stuck in her daughter’s skin. She was treated and released. The day the shooting happened, uh, the legislature was in session. I was in the state capitol, and um. Word came that there had been *** shooting in Stockton and we grappled to get information. That event was transfixing. The state legislature, the two houses of the state legislature, met together as what’s called *** committee of the whole, what’s now termed *** leadership issue. This is not just any of 120 California legislators, but It’s the leadership of both houses of the legislature. There was *** mobilization here in California as *** as *** result of that event, and to be honest, the momentum has never let up since. Black people will defend themselves in spite of any law passed because we realize that laws are passed for to protect white people and to oppress black people. And we will defend in spite of any law that Mulford makes or any other races in this country. I’m not at all sure that we didn’t have the right to arrest those people on another charge. There’s *** difference between someone carrying legitimately and legally *** weapon and someone, uh, uh, that must be construed by the manner in which they came in as if they came in constituting *** threat, and I think there’s ***, there’s *** certainly *** question there that if this was not an assault with *** deadly weapon. There was *** threat implied. It was new for *** conservative like Ronald Reagan to support gun restrictions, right? That’s the, that’s the nuance of it all, and there is absolutely no reason why out on the street today *** civilian should be carrying *** loaded weapon. The Constitution says the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. What we did as *** result of the Black Panthers at the Capitol was tighten policy on weapon carrying. I would have asked for 30 days, but as I said, uh, uh, 2 weeks may well be sufficient, and I hope so. If not, the judge, I’m sure will be understanding the party got national recognition. Even myself, an unconscious knucklehead, you know, now I have something to look up to, you know. Cleveland Elementary was *** was *** case study for *** lot of psychiatrists um talk about trauma care and and you know after incident trauma care um. We came back. School wasn’t normal for *** while. Crews worked all night to patch up the bullet holes and wash down the blood streaked walks. How soon afterwards did you end up going back to school? Uh, I believe that we went immediately like it was, we didn’t even take *** break. We were back in school the next day and by and large I had maybe just *** couple of kids the first day back, but I had parents bring their kids back to show them that I was OK. Oh, so the kids were worried about you. Yeah. School officials decided that the best way to start the healing process from the tragedy was to return the school to, as much as possible, *** normal routine. Most of my students came back. I, I had 32 students at the time, and I think about 26, 27 of them did come back. I don’t remember until, um, the next school year uh fast forward school years. It was *** blur from going back to school until end of school year. People. For very good reasons, um, want there to be change so that whatever that horror was that we experienced last week or the week before, etc. we don’t ever want that to happen again. Nobody else should have to bury their child. And people get frustrated at the lack of reform that follows those events. It’s *** bill signing with Jerry Brown. So that was in the 90s. That was in the Senate. If you can’t do everything, you do what you can and since the weapon of choice and destruction was *** semi-automatic military style assault weapon, at this point he opened fire with an AK-47. The weapon appears to be semi-automatic, which means that it requires *** trigger pull for each round fired. The focus was on restriction of that kind of weapon. Because the debate always centered on was this consistent with the Second Amendment of the Constitution. No single incident did more to advance the cause of banning assault weapons than the tragic shootings at the Cleveland Elementary School in Stockton. So let’s go back to our Sentinel event, Cleveland School. The first thing California does, and they do it very quickly, is develop and pass *** ban on assault-type weapons. In passing the assault weapons ban, I think it did demonstrate that there was *** willingness on the public’s part to accept reasonable gun regulation and that the notion that Somehow these weapons of semi-automatic mass destruction are in common usage or are needed for self-protection. I don’t use the term gun control for *** couple of reasons. One is lots of the policies are not directed at guns per se. They’re directed at people who might own guns, for example. I didn’t think in terms of the future. You were thinking in terms of do I get to tomorrow, yep. Yeah, and could my comrades get to tomorrow? That I really remember one brother saying to me, um, comrade sister, I would die for you. And that’s just Kind of how we lived because so many had died. Given the party’s short period of time, within that time, uh, we put together over 60 social programs, and many of those programs went on to be models for what we have in society today. Sue, after the, um, Sandy Hook shooting, most of us were retired by then, and, uh, that really hit us hard because those kids were the same ages as our kids. Some of it was for support for each other, but also we needed to do something because 24 years later it was still happening. This is in memory of my classmates, the 5 that passed away, and um, so, so why is it that in memorial um because the museum was created from their loss. So I revert back to that nine year old like why does gun violence still happen and why is it such *** huge crisis so I’m like if I can do something and that’s why I’m doing this is to help someone that has experienced gun violence or some you know um. Then it’s my way to like give back in the constitution of the state of California, the Constitution of the state of California. *** friend of mine came in and told me that he had just gotten into the police academy and that there was *** few seats left and they were doing one more test at Delta College. The shooting definitely strengthened my desire to become *** cop. Um, I, I didn’t come from *** family of law enforcement. In fact, the exact opposite. He ended up hiring me. So my first law enforcement job was actually working for the Stockton Unified School District Police Department at at 21 years old. Today Young is swearing to protect children at Cleveland School and other schools in Stockton. In 2013, I was involved in an officer involved shooting involving an active shooter, and I was one of six officers who shot and killed *** gunman in *** Bay Area neighborhood. So you talk about full circle. My, my story came full circle. Me personally seeing the attack on gun rights in our in our country and in the state, knowing the history of Cleveland Elementary and the impact that it had on gun control here in the state, I I shook my head at it. I’ve had many conversations with different groups of people like the teachers they want more safe community, but friends and family that want own wanna own *** gun and feel safe. It always brings back memories, um. You know, flashbacks occur, you know, but I have *** job to do You know, knowing what I know now and looking at the Second Amendment in our Constitution, I really, I, I come from the stance of there’s no compromise, right? Like it’s, it’s *** shall not be infringed, not it should not. So as, uh, we set out this year to defeat the divisive forces that would take freedom away, I want to say those fighting words for everyone within the sound of my voice to hear and to heed and especially. For you Mr. Gore From my cold dead hands. So the Heller case was brought against the District of Columbia gun control law that essentially banned handguns in the district and so the Supreme Court held in 2008 that the Second Amendment wasn’t limited to *** militia, it was, uh, included in the individual right to at least protect your home. If it is limited to state militias, why would they say the right of the people. In other words, why wouldn’t they say state militias have the right to keep arms? So the big move was two years later in the McDonald case. McDonald is very significant because it now means that every state and local government, when regulating guns has to consider federal constitutional principles, which simply wasn’t the case before. One of the first studies I did, I was looking at, I was looking at current data, wow, so many more suicides and homicides when you aggregate these 60% to 2/3. Of firearm deaths in the United States have been suicides. And 40% to 1/3 have been homicides. Cleveland School happens right about here. And we started enacting *** lot of policies, which is why and this isn’t purchasing, this is death. Death goes down, down, down, down, down, and we’re trending downward throughout the 21st century while the rest of the country on average is trending ever more sharply upward. The group at highest risk for homicide, young black men. Everybody knows that story. Too few people are willing to do something about it. The group at highest risk for suicide, old white men. Risk factors for suicide include increasing age, uh, decreasing health. Decreasing, decreasing sense of *** future. And Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband were both shot and killed inside their home on Saturday. We are today still dealing with *** real threat of political violence in the United States, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro. Praised state police Sunday after troopers helped him and his family escape *** fire in the residence. The suspect, 30 eight-year-old Cody Balmer, initially fled, then later surrendered to police. Tyler Robinson, accused of gunning down Charlie Kirk, appearing in *** Utah courtroom via video link for the first time since his arrest. So let’s talk about January 6th. Nobody has talked about the fact that that mob, whatever you want to call them, that large group of people, was with *** few exceptions, unarmed because DC prohibits carrying. The fact that January 6th did not result in the overthrow of the elected government of the United States, to my mind is the single most important victory for gun policy in the United States in its entire history. We have police departments that are heavily armed because of the way that military grade weapons have been passed down to police departments around the country. So as long as police departments have that kind of equipment, you have to have *** people who can protect themselves from dictatorship, and I think we are learning those lessons of. You know we can legislate guns they’re always gonna be in existence. People that have evil intent are always gonna find *** way to to hurt others. We as *** society do *** terrible job of keeping the people who don’t think responsibly about firearm use from having firearms. I don’t wanna say that guns are the end all be all. It’s just, it’s one of the tools that are available to us that we should be able to. You know, use and protect. I’m still furious, still furious because it’s happening all the time. and trying to comprehend why their lives ended. Across America, there’s deep shock at the Virginia Tech massacre, but no drill. The unimaginable right before their teenage eyes and mass shootings. Get that are less than 2% of the deaths from gun violence in our country. Earlier you said that you got *** cancer diagnosis, right? And you said that made it even more important that you come talk to us. I don’t want to leave this earth without being able to say there is *** change that has happened and people are going to be safer. I don’t need people not to have guns. I need people to be aware of the safety, you know, it should have stopped after our shooting. They should have done something to end it forever. These events occurred 40 and 60 years ago, and we are still dealing with the consequences. Policies in other states and nationally are still evolving in *** chain of events that was set in motion here in California. trip. In elementary school. Patrick Purdy’s social misfit.

Special Projects Producer/Reporter

The KCRA 3 documentary “Liberty and Limits: Guns in California” takes a look at two pivotal, historical events in California that have influenced the discussion over the Second Amendment, along with the regulation of guns and ammunition. On May 2, 1967, the Black Panther Party came to the California State Capitol armed in protest of a bill eliminating open carry in California.On Jan. 17, 1989, Patrick Purdy opened fire on a Stockton schoolyard, killing five children and injuring dozens.Both events were decades apart but left a lasting impact on both sides of the gun debate that “Liberty and Limits” explores. Watch the full documentary in the video above and dig deeper into the issues with the stories and charts below. Learn more about the Black Panther Party and the 1967 protest and its repercussions here. Learn more about the Cleveland Elementary School shooting and its repercussions here. See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel

The KCRA 3 documentary “Liberty and Limits: Guns in California” takes a look at two pivotal, historical events in California that have influenced the discussion over the Second Amendment, along with the regulation of guns and ammunition.

On May 2, 1967, the Black Panther Party came to the California State Capitol armed in protest of a bill eliminating open carry in California.

On Jan. 17, 1989, Patrick Purdy opened fire on a Stockton schoolyard, killing five children and injuring dozens.

Both events were decades apart but left a lasting impact on both sides of the gun debate that “Liberty and Limits” explores.

Watch the full documentary in the video above and dig deeper into the issues with the stories and charts below.

See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel