Stateline Master Document

BOOTH

OKLAHOMA WAS SETTLED AT THE SOUND OF A GUN, SEVEN TIMES FROM 1889 TO 1895.  THE GUNS, OF COURSE, PREDATED SETTLEMENT BY DECADES, ARRIVING WITH THE US ARMY BEFORE THE 1820S.

USED AS TOOLS AND WEAPONS.  USED BY COWBOYS AND INDIANS, OUTLAWS AND LAWMEN, SOLDIERS AND HOMESTEADERS, OKLAHOMANS HAVE A NEARLY TWO HUNDRED YEAR HISTORY WITH FIREARMS AND THE INTEREST SHOWS NO SIGN OF SLACKING.

S101/14:27:21

MILES HALL:  " There are the hunting side of this picture and that too has all sorts of divisions within hunting. Obviously there's a self defense side, and then there's just those who like to collect. You know, because gun collecting is one of the few hobbies that actually pays for itself pretty well."

BOOTH

ON THIS EDITION OF STATELINE, OKLAHOMANS' FASCINATION WITH THEIR SHOOTIN' IRON.

TRT

VO :

Guns have always been a part of Oklahoma. When it was called Indian Territory lawmen like Bill Tillman went after well armed outlaws with fire power of his own.

During the depression desperate criminals like Dillinger, "Pretty Boy" Floyd and Bonnie and Clyde robbed banks, killed police and died in a hail of bullets.

Criminals continue to use guns, the morning headlines tell their tale. What you don't hear about much are the hundreds of thousands of Oklahomans who legally collect guns, practice shooting their guns and responsibly carry their weapons with them everyday. They are Oklahoma's gun culture.

(Nat Sound : A Christmas Story)

Leroy

13:33:45       S-101

"I started out with a 1000 shot repeater Red Rider BB gun. And if you've see "A Christmas Story" you saw me in that Christmas story. I had the aviator hat with the goggles and every thing, I was that same age. And I got a BB gun probably when I was 11 years old."

Leroy

13:36:17       S-101

"Before that I enjoyed cap pistols and the other type of toy guns and things."

Leroy

13:26:52       S-101

"I bought my first gun in Oklahoma City at a store called Otasco...that was Oklahoma Tire & Supply, they're long gone. / And I was 14 years old and I went in and bought a semi automatic 22 rifle. Now I didn't have parents with me, nothing. I was able to just go in and buy a 22 rifle. Mowing lawns and earn money and put it on lay away and go in and once a week I'd pay a dollar on it. And finally I got it paid off."

Leon (Nats)

13:54:11        S-101

"Can I see a 300 short-mag? Sure."

Leroy who asked us not to use his last name has turned his love of firearms into a sizable collection.

Leroy

13:28:47        S-101

"Probably people outside Oklahoma would say "We'll, there's a gun nut...owns all these guns, why does he own all these guns?" My wife used to ask me that occasionally too. (Laughs) But if you don't understand hunting, don't understand guns...when my boys and I would go dove hunting or quail hunting, we'd take a shotgun of course. For my two boys and me that's three guns. And then if you're going somewhere to hunt, I always try to carry a spare gun so if a gun, something happens to it you would still, the three of us be able to hunt. So that's four guns."

Leroy

13:29:36        S-101

"Now if you're going to hunt ducks and geese that takes a different shotgun. So that's four more guns. And we also hunted deer, that's four more guns. And then if you're hunting predators, like coyotes or anything like that, that's a different gun, so that's four more guns. So as you can see a person that does quite a bit of hunting, and hunts around different things, they own a lot of guns."

Leon

13:30:14        S-101

"Every gun is made for a purpose. If you went out and bought a Corvette and you needed a pickup it wouldn't work very well."

VO :

So does having a collection make you a collector?

Leroy

13:40:36        S-101

"I say I'm not, my wife says I am, (Laughs) so it all depends. I think they're all necessary. But I do have some guns I've never shot so I guess that makes me a collector."

Leroy

13:40:59        S-101

"I will have to say this that all of the guns that I own and have ever bought, I could sell them today at a profit. So they haven't cost me much to own them and uh, but that's not why I owned them. I've never bought a gun that I thought I'd buy this for a profit. Some of the guns I own I own strictly for "hand me down guns" to my sons."

Along with the guns Leon is passing on his passion to his children and grandchildren.

Leroy

13:38:42        S-101

"All my grandkids have shot...all except one and she's only two and a half years old. But all the rest of them have shot. My kids started shooting at the age of about 3 and a half, four. Very controlled, you do have control of it but you teach them what a gun is how it works and when you go out to shoot they go out with you."

Leroy

13:39:14            S-101

"You know, it's just not a toy. But it is something you can enjoy. And like a say, every one of my grandkids have shot except the youngest one. And I'm sure that she'll be shooting before long."

(Nat Sound)

Leroy

13:37:42        S-101

"When nothing else makes sense you can go out with your guns...out into the woods, out in the wilderness and you know everything out there seems to make sense and work. "

Leroy

13:35:28        S-101

"Dove hunting, the really fun thing about dove hunting is it's a social event. You go out its not serious...you miss a lot of birds, you hit a few and you get to razz each other..."What's wrong? Did you feel sorry for that bird? You shot at it three times and it's still flying."

Leon

13:35:18        S-101

"I enjoy the wildlife; I enjoy the outdoors, and enjoy the guns. And that just puts it all together."

For some it's more than just a passion for shooting. Robert and Christy Duncan fell in love on the firing range.

Robert

13:59:47         S-101

"That was actually our first date. It was, it was. Her father and I were partners on the sheriff's department when I got started, and Christy had never been shooting and her dad had a fun experience teaching her to drive and wasn't about to do that with a loaded gun. So he asked me if I would go ahead and teach her to shoot. And we went on our first date together...shooting. Yeah."

Christy

14:03:28         S-101

"It defiantly builds your trust for one another."

Robert

14:03:03        S-101

"We were reading a New York Times article that gun places are an interesting first date night for a lot of people and a lot of the awkwardness of it goes away very, very quickly when you're learning how to shoot. (I liked you adjusting my hips...Laughs) I gives us something to focus on, it's something you can teach somebody...it makes it a lot easier than just trying to sit around at the movie and have a bowl of popcorn or something."

It wasn't long before that night on the range turned into a walk down the aisle.

Christy

14:00:36         S-101

"Right after we got married we got our conceal carry permits which he didn't really need one being a reserve deputy, but I did. And I really wanted one in case we were out somewhere and it's a way for me to protect my family. You know, if anything happened."

Robert

14:00:55         S-101

"And about four months after that we found out that we were going to have a daughter, Ryan, and that's when we decided it would be a really good idea to take shooting more seriously as a way of protecting ourselves and her."

Christy

14:07:57           S-101

"So now if feel more confident when I go out late at night with her just to get milk and bread at the store like every other mom or just out for the day Christmas shopping you hear about people that get attacked in parking lots, you know, Christmas shopping and I don't really worry about that now. It's something I take along with me just like I put on my shoes everyday. You know, I don't think about it."

Christy

15:33:57         S-101   (Nat Sound)

"We used to go all the time together but now we have a little one. We have to take turns so that one of us can watch her."

Christy

14:02:20          S-101

"I thought I would be a little bit more scared, just because I didn't really have the knowledge of firearms like he did. I was really actually surprised at the different feel of the different guns. I mean it was just a lot more different than I thought it was going to be. And it ended up being a sport that I love."

Christy

15:36:21         S-101   (Nat Sound)

"Usually after the first shot, the recoil I have to get used to that too and just kind of focus on how to breathe and how to shoot, and that's how I do it."

After a long day target practice can be a stress reliever.

Robert

14:05:52          S-101

"It works out pretty easily into the schedule because it's not like a game of golf when you're sitting there all day and you have to have a certain tee time. You can come in and go for about 20-minutes or so and have a nice break in the middle of the day."

Robert

14:05:42           S-101

"Usually we try to go on weekends if we can. It gives our parents a nice time to spend with our daughter; it gives us a chance to go out on a little date night too at the same time."

Robert

14:20:15        S-101

"If you're just going target shooting it's really inexpensive. I think you would spend about 10-dollars for your range fees, maybe 10-dollars on ammunition."

Robert

14:06:08            S-101

"I'm terrible at skiing and golfing and everything else, I might as well have one sport that I'm good at."

Robert

15:32:00   S-101

(Nat Sound)

"How do you think I did? Getting better huh?"

Robert

14:07:06            S-101

"I think it's a good way to keep proficient for work and good way to protect our family. It's also something we can enjoy doing together and something that we can introduce to our daughter later."

Christy

14:16:33          S-101

"I would much rather my child understand and know about guns from Rob and I than from on TV."

The Duncans are one of many families spending more time shooting together at places like the H and H gun range owned by Miles Hall.

Miles Hall

14:22:30          S-101

"The gun community as a whole is really big, I don't think people realize just how incredibly large it was...I know I didn't anyway. When we first got started you know, we just wanted to build a decent range and have a place to go and shoot for that kind of crowd is the way we viewed it. We didn't even own a gun, we owned one gun at the time we started the range in 1981 we owned "A gun"...one."

Miles Hall

14:35:50          S-101

"We wanted to teach people how to be safe and a place to go and shoot that didn't shoot back. (Laughs) it was pretty simple in the beginning, we got into retail sales a little over a decade ago and...on a serious level anyway. We finally just hit our stride just within the last few years."

Today they're making as much in a week as they used to make in a year. Hall has noticed a change in his customers recently.

Miles Hall

14:23:16           S-101

"What we see today of course are a whole lot younger people / they look at things a whole lot more dedicatedly. That's probably the best way to phrase it, they come in already knowing a fair amount and then they come in and say "teach me, tell me what I need to know."

Miles Hall

14:23:38          S-101

"So it's not like they rush in and say sell me anything, no they come in and say "I'm looking for this for this purpose, what are your thoughts." So they're more educated than in the past, at least from what we'd seen."

Miles Hall

14:23:49          S-101

"We did a demographic view of the average consumer that we had and most are married, most have children, most have some college."

Miles Hall

14:29:22          S-101

"I get such a kick out of first time shooters; where they come out and they're nervous you can tell they're tense...they got all the anxiety that builds up. And then they fire it the first time, and then it's like "Oh my gosh...this is...I get it! I get it! Now leave me alone I gotta shoot." (Laughs) you gotta love that. You gotta love that enthusiasm they suddenly bring to it."

That enthusiasm often results in a gun purchase, but not before filling out a pile of paperwork, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms keeps track of it all.

Miles Hall

14:41:50         S-101

"To buy a gun you have to go through so much, it actually consists of seven sheets of paper now. We have to turn in with every gun sale into the bookkeeping part of the office. So when you buy a gun you have to be a resident of the state of Oklahoma. You have to be of a proper age, which in the case of a handgun is 21. We take your information and put it on a form you fill out answering a gob of questions."

Dealers then pick up the phone and call the National Instant Check System. The FBI checks the buyer's background for criminal convictions.

Miles Hall

14:42:10          S-101

"And we either get a proceed, meaning that the guest can take the gun with them, a delay meaning they have to get more information, or a denial. In all the years I've been doing this we've received very few denials, because bad guys don't go to gun stores to buy guns."

Miles Hall

14:45:33         S-101

"All the dealers that I know from around the country they want to make sure that the guns they are selling are not getting into the hands of bad people O-K? You can do that on a single sheet of paper and a single phone call. In fact you don't even need the phone call anymore in this age of computers we ought to be able to be able to put in what we need and say "Yes, you're O-K...no you're not." Simple, now that's what I'd like to see."

After buying a gun lots of people like to carry it with them, to do that they must have a concealed weapon license.

Dave Page

18:36:28        S-108

"Calendar year 1996 was the first that we started issuing licenses to the actual applicants. In that year it was 15,081. The following year it dropped down to just a little over five thousand. The year after that it dropped down to a little over four thousand."

Dave Page

18:40:52           S-108

"As of June 30th, of 2008, which was the end of our fiscal year, there were 65,504 people licensed with valid licenses in the state of Oklahoma to carry a concealed firearm."

Oklahoma is one of 39 "shall issue" states that grant permits after meeting certain requirements.

Dave Page

18:28:46          S-108

"They have to be a US citizen.  They have to be an Oklahoma resident. They have to be 21 years of age. They have to take a safety in firearms course."

Mike Friend is a permit holder, even though his company in Wyandotte, Oklahoma makes guns that are a little hard to conceal.

Mike Friend

18:00:14           S-108

"This is an AK74 rifle build on our milled MLS99 receiver.  This rifle is 545 by 39 calibers.  It is built on Bulgarian parts.  (Edit) It's very mild as far as the kick.  The muzzle break works very well on this here caliber.  And I'll show you what it will do."

Turns out a lot of machine gun owners wanted a place to shoot nearby. Eight years ago Friend held the first Oklahoma Full Auto Shoot and Trade Show where for two days in early June shooters can open up and go full auto to their hearts content.

Mike Friend

17:35:53           S-108

"For someone who's never been there before you got a, after you get off the main road, about a two mile drive on dirt. And before you start getting there you start hearing machine guns and little explosions and stuff that we're setting off.  And so anticipation is getting pretty good. You wonder what in the world's going on out there. When you get there and you come through the front gate, you see all these people lined up on the machine gun line. They're all having fun shooting guns. They're shooting at everything. They're shooting at old cars. They're shooting at refrigerators. They're shooting at freezers. They're shooting at stoves.  Cement blocks. They're shooting at everything."

Every year the crowd gets a little bigger.

Mike Friend

17:41:29         S-108

"We'll have somewhere between a thousand a fifteen hundred spectators that show up."

Mike Friend

17:38:54          S-108

"Probably I'll say at least half of the people that come in are families. It may just be a father, son. Sometimes they'll have mom, dad, the kids, everybody. Stuff like this intrigues people."

Mike Friend

17:38:31         S-108

"Well you know dad was in the war. He was in the Army. And he's told his son stories of what the gun feels like to shoot. And you really can't grasp that unless you've physically shot it. And once you've shot it then you're kinda on the same page. "

Mike Friend

17:42:13          S-108

"You have somewhere between probably 250 and 300 shooters will show up."

Mike Friend

17:40:38         S-108

"Bankers, the lawyers, doctors. All those kind of people show up. You also have people in just a normal profession. They may be mechanics. Individual business owners maybe. Whatever. Just everybody."

Mike Friend

17:39:17          S-108

"It's a blast. It's a blast. Just the feel of the gun. A lot of people will shoot a semi-auto version and that's a blast to 'em. There's something about the noise that the gun makes when it's in full-auto. And the shake of the gun. It's just a total different feeling."

On Sunday morning the shooting stops and the crowds go home leaving behind memories and a pile of empty shells.

Mike Friend

17:41:05            S-108

"Only thing you see really is a bunch of smiles. And you get pats on the back.  And they say, "Man that was great."  I'll be back next year."  They're very glad that we're doing this because they can't just go just anywhere to do that.  That's pretty much the biggest part of the reaction we get."

Mike Friend

17:44:30           S-108

"I'm pretty busy. But I do enjoy it too. I get to shoot some. But I'm pretty much taking care of other things that's going on there. I enjoy seeing the people having fun."

Mike Friend

17:45:39         S-108

"I'll probably be doing it until I'm too old to be doing it. I love it."

For Will Massad hunting is his first love.

Will Massad

17:01:54        S-106

"The process for dove hunting is to find either a wheat field or some kind of feed field--sunflowers in particular. If you don't have that at the time, my favorite thing to do as the sun's going down is to hunt at a water hole which is what we're going to do here."

Whenever he gets the chance Will takes off for his favorite spot to hunt, something he's been doing since he was a boy hunting with his father.

Will Massad

16:56:30          S-106

"Big tradition. And it's mostly just about getting out. Sitting. Leave the office behind. Leave the everyday clutter behind. Just sit and take it all in. The reward of the hunt is secondary to me. Getting out there and being a part of outside, that's the first reward."

Will Massad

16:57:43          S-106

"You've got migratory game bird season which is dove hunting and waterfowl hunting--duck or goose. We do both quite heavily. Quail hunting, which is an upland bird, a non-migratory game bird, that's my first love. And it's the one thing we look forward to the most in my family is November through February."

Will Massad

16:58:27          S-106

"Then of course for deer you've got archery season, muzzle loader season, and then rifle season."

Will Massad

16:57:53          S-106

"Turkey season then in the springtime. That's always a good time. When it gets too hot we just get out the fishing poles and wait till next season."

There's even a sense of tradition in the guns he chooses to take.

Will Massad

16:59:19            S-106

"I like the Browning because it's what I was raised on. There's a lot of people in the state of Oklahoma and the Midwest will tell you this possibly could be the best upland gun made.--well it's not made anymore--but it's a favorite among upland hunters."

Will Massad

17:13:15          S-106

Clip C0051S01

"I've got friends that are just absolute die-hard do everything with bow. More power to 'em.  I like to hear the report of a gun go off. I hand load.  We like to load our own ammo, which can be more accurate than buying factory stuff, although the factory stuff nowadays is pretty darn good."

Will Massad

17:00:21           S-106

"One of my favorite stories is when I took my kids for the first time. My three children, my daughter is the oldest and then my two boys, and they wanted to play in some dirt. / My daughter, the bird dogs that we have are kinda like her adopted children. And so to see them in action trying to find quail, and then once they find quail, point the quail, we shoot the quail and they retrieve the quail, that is my daughter's favorite thing. My sons might be off playing in a sand pile or a dirt pile somewhere and she'll get aggravated with them 'cause they just missed her babies in action. / When we were finished at the end of the day, my daughter said, "well that's it. This is not for boys." (laffs). I said, "Well OK. If you're going to be my little hunter I'll just take you." Of course we got a pretty good reaction from the boys."

For the thousands of sportsmen in Oklahoma a bad day hunting is still better than any good day at work. They'll keep coming out, bringing the kids and carrying on a tradition older than Oklahoma itself.

Will Massad

17:22:19          S-106

"Watching the sun go down and it's starting to cool down and you don't hear any traffic. You don't hear any phones. You don't hear any work. This is no stress. This is, to me, as good as it gets."

TRT

BOOTH

IN INEXPERIENCED OR EVIL HANDS, A FIREARM CAN BE A VERY DANGEROUS THING INDEED.  NO ONE KNOWS THAT BETTER THAN JASON VICK WHO WAS SHOT DURING A CARJACKING.

S106

C0002S01

15:44:21:22

JASON VICK:  " I get to a stop sign.  And I go to make a turn and I look and see somebody behind me.  And these people hop out and they're walking up to the car.  And I think this must be somebody I know.  This is my neighborhood.  It's probably somebody I know because they're walking.  So I wait at the stop sign--wait for them to come up to the car and the passenger guy gets to the car first.  So I look to the right, at the passenger guy, and that's when I look to the left and that's where the guy has the gun on me.  I get out of the car and I give them the keys.  He was like they gonna shoot me anyway.  So they end up shooting me in the back."

BOOTH

A PROMISING COLLEGE ATHLETE, VICK LOST THE USE OF HIS LEGS.  AND YET JASON VICK HIMSELF REMAINS A PART OF OKLAHOMA'S GUN CULTURE.

S106

C004S01

16:05:45:09

JASON VICK:  " I like guns.  I have guns myself.  Me and my brother go to guns shows down at the fairgrounds.  Guns are just a tool.  People get a hold of the wrong tool they can hurt people with it.  If you had a guy that had some construction equipment they ain't supposed to be in there, he could probably do some damage around the city.  To me, guns are just a tool.  It's the person that gets a hold of the gun that can make a mistake and do bad stuff and hurt people with it."

BOOTH

VICK HAS DREAMS OF BECOMING A LAWYER AND HELPING TO PROSECUTE THOSE WHO MISUSE SHOOTIN' IRON.

TRT