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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-newtown-gun-
culture-20121221,0,6710027.story

NEWTOWN, Conn. � When the wind blows a certain way across the 
tree-topped hills, Gary Bennett can stand in his yard and hear 
echoes of gunfire from his hunting club five miles away. The 
sound comforts him.

"It's a huge tradition here," said Bennett, a retired 
electrician and former president of the club, which helped 
defeat a proposal to tighten Newtown's gun ordinances in 
September. "I'd rather see more gun clubs come to town, training 
people with the use of firearms so that everyone's doing it 
safely."

Anguished families are still burying the 20 children and six 
women who were shot to death by a lone gunman last Friday just 
after the morning Pledge of Allegiance at Sandy Hook Elementary 
School. But a surprising local undercurrent has emerged: Many 
gun owners here say the slaughter has sharpened their view that 
guns alone aren't the problem.

"I wish that at that school somebody was armed," said Kuthair 
Habboush, a software engineer who keeps a weapon at home for 
protection. "If a security guard or a teacher or a principal had 
been armed, somebody could have taken the [killer] out" before 
his lethal rampage.

Firearms are deep in the culture of this corner of New England. 
Two of America's most storied weapons manufacturers, Colt and 
Winchester, were based in Connecticut. Some historians say the 
West was won in Hartford � the state capital and birthplace of 
the Colt revolvers favored by lawmen and outlaws alike beginning 
in the 1830s.

Today, dozens of gun dealers, gun instructors, gun repair shops 
and shooting ranges do a brisk business in Newtown and nearby 
cities and towns. Private hunting clubs are widespread, many 
with waiting lists for membership.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation, a powerful lobbying 
group for gun retailers, has its headquarters across the highway 
from Sandy Hook Elementary School.

"You'd be surprised," said Sean Eldridge, owner of Parker 
Gunsmithing, a gun repair shop in nearby Danbury, referring to 
his customers. "They're regular people and they have an arsenal 
in their basement."

That was the case with Nancy Lanza, a wealthy divorced mother 
who enjoyed jazz, craft beer and frequent visits to shooting 
ranges. She kept at least five weapons, all legally registered 
to her, in the large Colonial-style house she shared with her 20-
year-old son, Adam.

Early last Friday, authorities say, Adam Lanza shot his mother 
repeatedly in the head with her .22-caliber rifle as she lay in 
bed. He then drove to the elementary school, shot his way in and 
fired dozens of rounds into two first-grade classes using her 
Bushmaster assault-style rifle. Some of the children were shot 
11 times. He then shot and killed himself with one of her 
pistols.

Far from the wealthy coastal communities that serve as bedroom 
suburbs and weekend resorts for New York City, 70 miles south, 
Newtown was a farming and hunting area for generations.

Dave Chapdelaine, a resident for more than 40 years, recalled 
walking down the middle of his rural road with a shotgun in the 
1970s, taking aim through the trees at rabbits, squirrels and 
pheasants. Every year he and three friends held a game cookout, 
and sold rabbit fur to a company in New York.

Now houses are nestled in those woods, and Chapdelaine, a school 
bus driver, heads north to Vermont to hunt. He's among many in 
Newtown who question the wisdom of stiffer gun control laws, 
which President Obama called for Wednesday at the White House.

"To me, a firearm � 99% of the time, when it's unloaded � it's a 
beautiful work of art," Chapdelaine said. "It's not meant to 
kill people. It's meant to protect people and help you provide 
for your family. But you have to keep them out of the hands of 
the loonies."

Over the last decade or so, the town's rustic character changed 
with the arrival of upscale families who commute to New York or 
other cities, and who see guns as a nuisance, if not a threat.

"There are people that have had their families here for several 
generations, love this town for what it is and what it was, and 
they want to preserve that bucolic rural setting," said Andy 
Sachs, a real estate agent and member of a town commission that 
supervises police. "And there's a new guard who's moved in the 
past 15 years that want to see more growth opportunities, more 
commercial opportunities, more vibrant suburban living. That's a 
struggle."

One sign of the divide was a sharp debate this fall over the 
commission's proposals to curtail hours for target shooting, and 
to require police approval for shooting on private property, 
after a growing number of noise complaints.

Dozens of members of the Fairfield County Fish & Game Protective 
Assn., a 300-acre private hunting club on Newtown's southern 
outskirts, showed up at a town meeting in September to defend 
gun rights. Bowing to the outcry, the police commission shelved 
the proposal.

"It's an issue anywhere you have people moving in from big 
cities into a rural area and they have hard time dealing with 
what goes on here and want to make all these changes," said 
Bennett, the former hunting club president.

"We have to educate these people about what we do and why we do 
it," he added. "They should have no fears that our activities 
are going to impact them any way. You can change this gun law 
and that gun law, and it's not going to change things like [the 
school shooting] from happening."

Still, in a nod to the town's tragedy, the club has halted all 
hunting and shooting on its property for two weeks "so there 
wouldn't be the sound of gunfire while a funeral was going on," 
Bennett said.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation, the lobbying group near 
the school, hasn't commented publicly but posted a brief 
statement on its website saying that it was "deeply shaken and 
saddened" by the killings.
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