Text of Councilman Snyder's Statement on Gun Rights

(Editor's Note - The following is the text of a statement made at Monday's Falls Church City Council meeting by Councilman David Snyder. His remarks were addressed to a room full of pro-gun rights advocates in attendance).

The sign I am holding up says 1865. That was the year the Civil War ended. It was also the last time that the citizens of Falls Church needed to be concerned about people carrying guns on public property and the last time that citizens needed to carry them. I respect your right to be here. So, welcome. There may be places where you need your guns, but let me assure you Falls Church isn't one of them.

Over more than a decade in which I have been blessed to be a Falls Church public official, this community - its citizens and government - have worked very hard on public safety. We have a well-financed and large for our size police force and sheriffs department; we have officers in our schools and we engage in intensive community based policing in the higher crime areas. We maintain school and city services to get at the root causes of violence and we support a fair and effective judicial system focused on prevention before the fact as well as after.

In short, we are a caring and involved community. Of course, our taxpayers foot the bill for all of this with precious little if any help from the outside - certainly not the federal or state government. But most importantly, we are a community which is committed to non-violence in everything we do. That's not to say we don't have strong disagreements but they occur without physical threats or intimidation.

I share this community's values and let me explain why. As a rescue squad volunteer I have treated patients who have been crushed in cars, run over by trains, stabbed, clubbed, slashed, drugged, pushed from balconies, burned, scalded to death and even injured in the terrorist attack at the World Trade Center. And yes, I've treated shooting victims, people shot in the arm, leg, abdomen and chest. But one call I won't ever forget. My crew was dispatched to a shootout in a bar. When we arrived, we found a man lying on the floor with his gun next to him while the police chased the assailant out the other side of the bar. You see, it seems our patient had been shot with a .45 - in the head. Do you know what a .45 caliber bullet does to the human cranium? The bullet enters leaving a hole the size of a quarter and exits with a hole the size of several silver dollars, taking with it skin, brain, bone and life itself. So, if I don't like violence, you might understand why. This community shared that value and I am proud to be part of it.

I am proud of our community and deeply troubled that our community's ability to provide for our own safety, as we see fit, is curtailed by remote politicians and special interests who don't pay taxes here and will not bear the consequences of their own peculiar views of what is good for us.

Therefore, I support the direction of the City Manager and wish we could do more. If the proposed policy needs to be fine tuned to conform to current law - such as it is -then so be it. I will also continue to advocate that the people of this and other communities be empowered to make these kinds of decisions for ourselves, to decide our own destiny as free men and women. That is why I have supported in every legislative program a request to allow up to determine the gun policies that apply to the facilities and grounds that are ours. And I will again, this year and so long as I am able. Here I stand. I can do no other.