Friday, January 21, 2011

This week in the right to bear arms

I avoided talking about the shooting in Tucson because my opinion was so very very predictable I figured why fill space with that noise, right?  & so let me assure you that aside from that sentence just then, my chatter re: Tucson ends now.

Which brings us to much more pedestrian/garden variety/everyday joe gun fun here in Fladidah.  I could open with the guy last month who opened fire on a school board meeting, but I thought I would try to limit myself to just 2011.  We opened with a news item regarding the shooting surrounding FSU.  No not the old shooting, the new shooting.  The short version on this one: Ashley Cowie died because a guy who had experience with hunting rifles, etc. was showing a "new accessory"" to some friends.  Hey that's the kind of thing that could happen to anyone, right?  Anyone who brought a loaded rifle to a fraternity gathering & started showing off that is.  & if one random person has to die, well such is life.  Or death.

Of course, a second life is also as good as over: the shooter, remember the shooter?  Exorcising his Constitutionally protected right to bear arms, he accidentally killed someone which means he gets charged with manslaughter.  That means five or so in with career criminal types who have not actually been convicted for killing anyone.  Anyhow, we opened the week with more stories about what an upstanding citizen he is & how it is a damn shame this happened.  I'm sure he will be just as good a guy when he gets out.

Next we had the gun in the backpack.  No, not the one that the kids dropped on a desk & shot two of his classmates, that was in Los Angeles.  Here at home, our local PD is hosting two kids from an adjacent county who brought a gun & a knife to school  Everyone thinks it is important to stress that the kids just had them.  There is no clue they were bullies or being bullied or any sign that they were planning a school shooting.  School just seemed like a good place for one to hand-off the gun, removed from a parent's closet, to the other.  Well that's a relief, isn't it?

Finally there is the bill introduced to allow guns to be carried on Fladidah campuses, legally that is.  When is that ever not a good idea.  As the wife of a physics professor (the secondary education gunmans' favorite target), maybe I have a kind of skewed perspective.  I know, I know, if people keep aiming at physics professors, they must deserve it on some level.  After all, the classes they teach are hard &, if you are pre-med or an engineer, required.  & it turns out the laws of physics aren't like, say the laws of poetry (my own area of study) & there really is a right answer.  Like I said, hard.

Of course, our campus has the extra party that comes with all those football fans.  The locals get fringe benefits out the drunk & disorderly visitors (those fines add up), but I'm not sure they'll be so gung-ho about arming them.  Especially as they barely want the campus police armed after that whole shot a guy in the head because same guy -unarmed- threaten to kill himself.  Nothing says don't kill yourself like a bullet in the brain.

Naturally A himself has a point of view on this whole "bring your gun to campus" thing.  He mused that perhaps he WOULD start bringing a loaded gun to school, maybe leave it there, in plain view, while he teaches or even during office hours & exams.  Sure it will probably make it hard for students to concentrate with the muzzle pointing across the desk, but since when has what happens in the classroom been about them?

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