Ironic, isn't it? Just yesterday I said that I will write and post about things that interest me, but I'm not a torch carrying standard bearer. Aside from that being too dangerous - after all, if the torch you're waving ignites the standard you're carrying, where are you? - the interweb is full of people proselytizing.
Then, just yesterday, I came across something someone posted over on Authonomy (we have torch carrying standard bearers there, too) that just dropped my jaw. I'm still scratching my head over it this morning.
Straight-up, dead honest, I am a gun owner. I grew up in a house with .22 caliber rifles. For almost thirty years, on virtually every Saturday morning, my dad taught hunter safety for the California Department of Fish and Game. Through his classroom passed, literally, thousands of people who learned the fundamentals of safe gun handling. Including me. I took the course when I turned thirteen - the earliest age at which I was eligible to participate. I learned certain fundamentals:
- Never point any gun, toy or real, at any human being.
- Be sure of your backstop. Be Sure of your target.
- A safe weapon is an unloaded weapon. Do not give or take a weapon on which the chamber is not open.
- Use the safety and make sure it's on if you are handling a gun.
- Never store a firearm with a round loaded in the chamber.
- Keep ammunition stored separately from the firearm.
- Guns and alcohol do not mix.
It's all very basic commonsense kind of stuff.
Dad died of cancer when he was eighty-six. He never shot himself or anyone else. He taught my brother and me gun safety, too. When I was little, I knew that if I touched one of those guns without his permission, it was not safe. If I did and he found out I would be 'toast' as the saying is. So I never did unless he let me and stood right there to make sure I didn't do anything stupid. Like dig out the ammo, load the thing and 'play'.
So, I'm a safe gun owner. I know the rules, I understand the ramifications and responsibilities of having guns in the house. Mine are and remain locked up until I perceive that I might need them. Then they are there to be used if necessary.
I bought the shotgun not for its looks, but for the distinctive and loud snap-snap of the forestock when you chamber a round.
If someone breaks into my house, because my guns are locked up and not loaded, I'm not going to make the mistake of holding my index finger in the air while pleasantly saying, 'Can you hold on just a sec? I need to get out my gun and ammo and load it, 'k?' I am going to grab the unloaded shotgun, take it into the upstairs hallway (for the acoustics) and slide that forestock, letting it snap-snap as loudly as possible. Stealth will not be my goal. My fervent prayer in that instance is that whoever is coming through the ground floor window or door will hear it. I genuinely hope they wet themselves and flee (or flea, as Woody Allen would have it in 'Love and Death').
If not, I'll end up using it as a club when they come up the stairs because, at that point, I won't have time to dig out the shells and load it.
What got me going on this, though, is the incredible stupidity of lawmakers. Alcohol and firearms do not mix. Ever. Period. But the legislature in the Great State of Texas has decided that letting college kids carry concealed weapons on campus is a good idea.
Now, before I throw the Texas legislature under the bus, let's get something clear: Other states already allow this. Including Colorado, where marijuana is now legal - and that's a very bad mix, and Oregon (along with Kansas, Mississippi, Wisconsin...)
In Texas, the limitations are that students have to be twenty-one or older. As if that's going to carry any weight. No eighteen year old ever drinks the liquor that isn't legal for them until they're twenty-one.
Apparently, the idea behind this is campus safety. The argument being that if other students are armed and some idiot gets the idea that shooting up the campus is a brilliant idea, they can stop the whack-job before it gets very far. Virginia Tech had an on-campus shooting in 2007 in which thirty-two people died because a mentally ill student wasn't flagged as such in any record repository that a gun seller could check. Patient-doctor privilege, no doubt. In Austin, Texas there was the clock tower shooting in which a student holed up in the campus clock tower and shot sixteen people dead. That was in 1966. We all know there have been others.
The problem is that college kids drink. How many college kids end up in the ER or die because of alcohol poisoning every year? Lots. And when you have college kids drinking, and there are guns lying around (because none of these carrying students is also going to have a gun safe to hand), that is a very bad, a very bad mix.
The fact is that unless and until we get responsible as a society when it comes to guns and gun safety, this is a terrible idea.
What is interesting, though, highly interesting actually, is that other states have carry laws and I've not heard of wild campus shoot-em-ups in those places. That doesn't mean it won't happen, but it hasn't yet. Which is encouraging.
However, back to guns and gun safety. I am a radical when it comes to this because the process I see that's needed is not a three day or ten day or whatever day waiting period while the gun store checks with the Feds to see if you're okay. This is something that requires fundamental changes in the way we think of guns, safety, and privacy. Here are the rules in my perfect world:
First, and foremost, anyone who wants to buy a gun must submit to a thorough background check.
Alcoholism, drug use, psychiatric problems, anything that might be an issue when it comes to that individual being safe and reasonable knocks them out. I don't want some kid who had a run-in with the law and ended up in juvenile court when he was fourteen owning a gun when he's twenty-one. That is not a good mix because, to me, it shows that he's already shown that he's incapable of living within the bounds of acceptable behavior that society has established. I also don't want someone who's been seen by a pshrink and has been given drugs to control bi-polar or any other mental disorder owning a gun.
Second, if anyone is going to carry a firearm anywhere, they must attend and pass gun safety classes that are taught by professionals. Before they are allowed to own or carry, they must prove to the professionals teaching the class that they know how to safely handle the weapon. Tie this into applying for the purchase of a gun. If you want to buy a gun, you cannot take possession of it until the background check - psychiatric and criminal - is complete and you have taken the classes, taken the test, and proved to the satisfaction of the professionals who taught you the basics that you can be a safe gun owner.
Third, ammunition should not be a walk-up purchase. You should not be able to walk into any store that carries ammunition in this country and be able to buy it without some form of identification. Show your permit, complete a form, sign your name and pay. That simple. And that goes for re-loading supplies, too. You want to buy cartridges, bullets and gunpowder? Same deal - permit, form, pay.
As for the students carrying on campus, anyone who walks onto school grounds - be it K-12 or college, should immediately be subject to search. And this one bothers me - A LOT. It's too police state and far over the line when it comes to the Fourth Amendment (illegal search). However, if I'm sitting in class and I have a gun in my bag and if I know that my bag might be searched and the consequences will be hard, fast and blind, I'm going to make damned sure I'm in compliance.
Any student or visitor to that campus who is not a member of law enforcement there on business must be willing to submit to spot checks of their dorm room or person. If they have a gun in their possession, they had damned well better have the permit for it, too. If they don't, out. Done. Prosecution for carrying a concealed weapon, period. Fines, 'first time' excuses simply do not exist. It's jail time because this is far too serious and too dangerous for half-measures.
So, soapbox goes back into the closet and I'll let this one go. I just hope to heaven that these guys in Texas know what they're doing. Colorado and Oregon and Idaho, etc., seem to be okay. So far. I sincerely hope it stays that way but if you visit a college campus, be polite, don't piss anyone off, and watch your back.
Best~
Philippa
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One should always treat a gun as if it is loaded. It is a safety precaution which is taught in every firearms safety training school. However, people who don't get the training are more prone to accidentally kill somebody or self. Thank you for this interesting and informative post.
ReplyDeleteFirearms Safety Training Classes