For the second time in a month, someone fired a gun at Veterans Park in Amsterdam.
The most recent incident happened before 3:30 in the afternoon on Sunday. The pool was open. A three-day basketball tournament was underway. The previous incident happened during a free family movie night as “Minions: The Rise of Gru” played on the screen. Kids as young as 4 years old were watching, according to reporting by Ashley Onyon.
These shootings are not examples of crime run amok in Amsterdam. Instead, they prove how senseless it is to bring guns to a community park.
On Sunday, Josefina J. Baret-Araujo, 36, of Amsterdam, allegedly brought her legally owned loaded Glock 19 handgun to Veterans Park.
For what purpose? If it was for her own protection, that hardly worked out very well for Baret-Araujo, who has now been charged with second-degree assault, a felony, second-degree criminal possession of a weapon, a felony that’s related to the intent to use a loaded gun against another person, and second-degree reckless endangerment, a misdemeanor. She was released on bail Tuesday.
And how did the presence of the gun work out for the 38-year-old victim, who had to be taken to Albany Medical Center and treated for non-life threatening injuries to her hand and leg?
What’s more, how exactly did this gun make anyone in the park that afternoon safer?
As far as police have said, the victim wasn’t someone posing an immediate threat, waving a weapon at Baret-Araujo. The two women seemed to know each other and had previously accused each other of “harassing behavior.” Police said Baret-Araujo may have brought the weapon to the park with the intent to harm the victim.
Details are still being sifted through, but witnesses described Baret-Araujo as pulling out her handgun and firing it once before it malfunctioned. She should be glad it did. Not only would firing more shots have utterly and completely failed to solve any sort of disagreement between the two women, it could have resulted in graver injuries and even more serious criminal charges.
The problem with guns is that their very presence only perpetuates the likelihood of using them.
“The gun’s purpose is violence,” Gretchen Schmidt, a criminologist and the department chair of Public Administration and Leadership at Excelsior University in Albany, told me following an April fatal shooting in a Washington County driveway. “The ‘weapon effect’ is that the presence of guns alone has been found to increase aggressiveness in some. You kind of work this all up in your own mind, and it feeds into your aggressiveness and your paranoia.”
With anger generally on the rise coming out of the pandemic and emotional temperatures remaining hot, an increased presence of guns only stands to make our pent-up feelings more explosive.
Gun proponents argue that concealed carry creates an opportunity for some do-gooder with a Glock to step in before police can arrive at the scene of a chaotic, violent shootout. But the reality is more guns will only lead to more chaos, to more violence.
Research from the Center for American Progress shows weakening concealed-carry requirements leads to an increase in violent crime.
Beyond that, though, just consider this: Do you really want your fellow picnickers to be packing heat as they’re grilling burgers and dogs for their family? Do you really want anyone other than trained members of law enforcement to have a weapon at an evening community event where children are watching an animated movie?
Police are still actively investigating the shots fired during the July 12 movie night at Veterans Park. No arrests have been made and no injuries were reported.
“I’m disgusted, just disgusted that people would think it’s OK to bring a loaded firearm to a public place, especially a park where children are congregated,” Amsterdam Mayor Michael Cinquanti told Onyon. “Guns don’t belong near kids, they really don’t.”
Sadly, the Supreme Court of the United States’ June 2022 ruling allows for concealed carry in New York, thus expanding the right. While the New York state Legislature’s law passed in response to the ruling and establishing sensitive locations where guns are not allowed has, for now, been allowed to stand, it faces numerous legal challenges.
Following the most recent shooting at Veterans Park in Amsterdam, local officials are mulling safety measures. Neighbors and city leaders met Wednesday night after print deadline to discuss the issue, and solutions floated in the past include installing security cameras at the park or ramping up police patrols.
“I’m willing to consider anything at this point that would increase safety, increase the feeling of safety,” Cinquanti told Onyon.
You know one thing that would increase the feeling of safety and limit shootings?
Parkgoers leaving their firearms at home.
Columnist Andrew Waite can be reached at awaite@dailygazette.net and at 518-417-9338.