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Considering the dog and pony show that has become American politics of late, including the comical, yet no less despicable, Bush administration’s blunder du jours or the endless cable network news’ rehashing of the finer (trivial) points ad nauseam of our latest national tragedy i.e. kidnappings, gruesome killings, sexual scandals, etc., there isn’t much out there that surprises me anymore. Call me jaded, or bored or worse; I’m ashamed to say that to really tweak my interest, to metaphorically slap me up aside the head and capture my attention, a story has to be really out there, off-the-wall or just plain illogically unbelievable, or as is too often the case these days, unutterably dumb. Yet, it still happens. Take for example an article I stumbled across this morning at the breakfast table that originally ran in Boulder, Colorado’s newspaper, the Daily Camera. The Colorado Springs chapter of the national non-profit organization, Students for Concealed Carry on Campus (SCCC), a “bipartisan” group that advocates allowing students who possess handgun licenses to carry concealed weapons onto campuses and into classrooms, is petitioning regents at the Colorado University Boulder campus to amend its rules to pave the way for pistol packing along with matriculation. Colorado already has a fairly lenient law on the books enacted in 2003 that allows residents to walk around locked and loaded in just about every venue imaginable, including college campuses. In their wisdom, however, the regents at CU Boulder adopted a weapons ban in 1970 that they beefed up in 1994 to ensure that guns remained off campus where they belong except in the hands of campus security and other law enforcement officials. The regent’s ban was upheld by the state after the 2003 law passed, pissing off those whose gun fetishes overcome their common sense. The SCCC is supported by those you would expect: conservative right to bear arms groups and individuals like Texas Governor Rick Perry (W’s successor,) G. Gordon Liddy and Fox comedian, Glenn Beck. At their first national convention, Liddy of Watergate fame was one of the keynote speakers, a point that should raise a plethora of red flags in anyone with a scintilla of reasoning power. The SCCC is opposed by organizations like the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, students and parents who believe gun toting students on campuses will only exacerbate the problem and open the door for potentially more violence, contrary to SCCC propaganda. The 30,000 strong SCCC is purportedly made up of 90 percent students and 10 percent college officials, average citizens and parents. Impressionable, read young, green students with no sense of the fragility of life, I can understand, the others I assume are adults who should know better. The SCCC is long on answers and refutations of their critic’s opposition, making a compelling argument about the righteousness of their crusade. Honestly, I can’t condemn the SCCC’s frustration and sense of urgency to do something – anything – to confront the tragic issue of school killings by obviously deranged armed nut jobs. No one watching the horrendous images of the Virginia Tech incident could come away not feeling horrified and frustrated by the senselessness of it all. But arming students? I think not. To their credit, or folly (it’s too early to tell yet,) groups like the National Rifle Association and others scored victory after victory both at the State and Federal levels in recent years to relax gun laws, especially concerning the right to carry a concealed weapon. Personally, I oppose allowing citizens to wander the streets armed to the teeth, ready for that moment when their trusty .45 will come to the aid of an unsuspecting populace by squelching the odd robbery or gunning down a roving band of wild-eyed, pistol popping-maniacs that happen by their History 101 class or local convenience store. Why, you might ask? What’s wrong with upstanding, civic minded adults carrying concealed weapons to protect themselves, their loved ones and fellow citizens in this all too often crazy, mixed up world we live in? One word: Fear. The whole premise of allowing people to carry deadly weapons is based on fear – and fear alone. Your average John and Jane Q. Public doesn’t have a clue as to how they would react in a situation like the Virginia Tech massacre. I posit most of them would either be too befuddled by the horror and mayhem going on around them to even find their concealed weapons. If they did, despite what the SCCC would have you believe, they would be acting out of a deep rooted primal fear that most of us only hope we never have to encounter – and that is a recipe for an even greater disaster. The fact that the law allows a person can carry a concealed weapon doesn’t mean they will be able to wield it in a professional manner when hot lead starts flying. Everything, absolutely everything, said about the merits of arming common folk is strictly conjecture, nothing more. In fact, gun rights organizations and the SCCC fuel their propaganda on 100 octane fear. Fear of losing the right to bear arms – which I do not oppose as laid out by the Constitution. Fear that the bad guys are out to gun you down if you don’t have an equal level of firepower hidden away in your purse, backpack or ankle holster. Fear that every classroom, church service or factory floor is a potential killing field, waiting on for the right convergence of evil and mania to erupt in a blood bath of Biblical proportions. Common sense, and yes, even statistics show that the Virginia Techs of the world are anomalies that occur infrequently and are at best random acts of violence. If the perpetrators are serious about carrying out their plans, they certainly aren’t gong to be deterred by some inexperienced, skinny-assed college kid out to make a name for them self and their proficiency, or lack there of, in handling a gun. The situation is just too far fetched – and yes – frightening to believe. - Gary -
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