Reginald Dwayne Betts fires Glock 19 at Virginia gun range
Updated
Updated · The New York Times · May 8
Reginald Dwayne Betts fires Glock 19 at Virginia gun range
2 articles · Updated · The New York Times · May 8
Betts says the visit came 25 years after convictions for an armed carjacking committed at 16, which left him barred from ranges in nearly every state but allowed in Virginia.
In a first-person essay, he describes shooting as a way to confront trauma and the lifelong consequences of a nine-year prison sentence imposed because he used a gun.
Betts recounts how the 1996 crime in suburban Virginia turned a Maryland teenager into a felon, shaping his identity long after prison.
When a felon finds peace with a gun, does it erase the violence of their past?
He can legally own a gun in Virginia, but is he still a felon under federal law?