On a Mission to Promote Gun Safety

When she spotted the loop of blue cable next to my coffee cup, the waitress couldn’t help but interrupt.

“Wow, is that a gun lock?” she asked. “I really need one of those! I’ve got a 14-month-old, and my husband wants to bring his gun from his dad’s house, but I said no way--we have to protect our child.”

She didn’t realize she was preaching to the converted.

Larry Wayman had just been telling me how gun locks save lives.

He was talking about his efforts to give them--free--to anyone who would use them.

He was talking about a 5-year-old who found a loaded gun beneath his grandpa’s bed and blew his sister’s brains out.

He was talking about young people and rage and the brutal acts of whacked-out neighbors.

Wayman is part of a group called Faith Connection, an alliance of local congregations. When a young person in Ventura County dies violently, Faith Connection troops to the site for a candle lighting and a quiet memorial. The current tally: 60 vigils since 1996.

Of course, gun locks wouldn’t magically eliminate gun deaths, Wayman was saying. But they would help.

Then, as if to prove his point, Crystal Taylor came to fill the coffee cups and express her grave concerns about mixing toddlers and firearms. She walked off with a free gun lock.

“Was that a set-up?” I asked Wayman, pastor of the North Oxnard United Methodist Church.

“Some people say the Lord works in mysterious ways,” he responded, only half-joking.

A silver-bearded man with a ready laugh, Wayman peppers his conversation with earnest theological references. He talks about “the dynamic of life” and the “politics of redemption”; he says--without a trace of fashionable irony--that we should strive for a “beloved community.”

He and other members of Faith Connection have been proselytizing for gun locks since the summer. They were prompted by news reports of a church in Glendora that distributed more than 500 of them. And it was time to do something, Wayman said; seminars and forums and days of concern were all fine and good, but some of his congregants were eager for less talk and more action.

“It just seemed like a no-brainer to make these things available,” he said. “We’re just trying to play our roles as good neighbors. Theologically speaking, it’s an expression of our faith. “

Like most no-brainers, however, doling out gun locks is a lot more complicated than it seems.

Gun-lock opponents claim that the devices make guns useless for protection at home. When the vicious intruder slithers through your bedroom window, you just don’t have time to reach for your gun, find your key, undo the lock, unthread the cable from inside the barrel, locate your ammo, load it, and, finally, fire.

But Wayman ventured that guns at home--he doesn’t have one, by the way--do more harm to family members than to burglars.

Besides, the time it takes to undo the lock might be just enough to let the irate spouse cool down or the would-be suicide reconsider.

At first, the Faith Connection lock program was nothing to brag about. In fact, the group couldn’t give the things away. In two months, there were just three takers, partly because there was no central distribution point. Wayman’s church in Oxnard is off the beaten path. Faith Connection volunteers wanted to hand them out from their booth at the Ventura County Fair, but Wayman said fair officials were skittish about it.

This week, however, Port Hueneme police announced they would hand out 100 of the group’s locks. In two days, the supply ran out.

The effort has taken on new life. The Ventura County Fire Department is talking about helping Faith Connection by distributing the locks at local firehouses. The sheriff’s office is having similar discussions. (If you need a lock right away, try calling Wayman’s church at 458-0778.)

All Wayman has to worry about now is raising enough money for thousands of the devices--they cost $2 each--rather than the mere 300 purchased by Faith Connection in August. He acknowledges that gun locks wouldn’t have prevented the summer’s massacres, but still, he’s pleased.

“This is something more tangible than prayer,” he said. “Not that there’s anything wrong with praying.”

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Steve Chawkins can be reached at 653-7561 or by e-mail at steve.chawkins@latimes.com.