Ok, so I'm sitting where I usually sit. No, maybe I'll sit over there. yeah, I should start sitting over there. Much better angles. Ok, so I'm sitting over there and dude walks in, probably THAT dude over there, he looks the type. Is that a bulge in his jacket? Fuck, it could happen today, but I don't have it yet. So dude walks in (I'm going to have to keep an eye on him) and nobody notices at first, but then he draws his Glock. no, Sig. No! it's a Walther. Yeah. So he draws his Walther and the professor just looks up at him slack-jawed. Then dude starts monologing. Yap, yap, yap, life sucks yap. And he pulls the trigger. Prof goes down and dude just keeps unloading. Maybe he hits that dick in the second row. Anyway, while he's busy and everybody's screaming I get my S&W out.
I take careful aim, but right when I'm about to fire, dickweed over there jumps up to run and gets in the way. Dude looks right at him and caps him, but he sees me too. Before I can get a clear shot he plugs me once in the left shoulder. But then I nail him and he goes down. I walk up to him slowly and he looks dead, but at the last second he opens his eyes and lifts his gun to take another shot at me. I hit him once in the head and twice in the chest just like the fuckin' special forces, then I collapse. Linda comes running up and she's all crying and is like "Oh you saved our lives! Don't die! Please. How can I ever repay you?" I open my eyes and smile. Yeah.
This is the fantasy of
concealed carry on campus. Everybody wants to be a hero. When you have a bunch of starry-eyed heroes (or raging paranoiacs) running around on campus with guns though, it's bound to cause some problems. Problems that these would be saviors are not trained to deal with.
So, you hear shooting in the room down the hall and you run down there to save the day, but you get there and there are two people shooting at each other, plus a hundred panicky innocents. Who do you shoot? How do you know who the bad guy is if there's more than one person shooting? It also makes it much more difficult for
law enforcement to figure out who the bad guys is. Then there are the inevitable show-offs and braggarts. Suddenly every little conflict has the potential to become deadly.
Frankly, the only people I trust to handle firearms appropriately are people who have trained as law enforcement, or people that I've been to the range with (and even then I don't really want them to carry).
You can say "Well fuck you. I'm not gonna be a victim!" But you know, I'm probably not going to be a victim either, and it's not because I carry.
The fantasy is very nice. Like I said, everybody wants to be a hero. The reality however is fraught with complications and impracticalities. Concealed weapons don't lead to a safer society. Ask the Canadians.
All that said, I'm still in favor of private gun ownership and I enjoy shooting in appropriate venues. I do not delude myself into thinking that gun ownership will keep me safe from random violence.
Labels: guns