Sherry Chandler

16 Comments

• 1. Rosalie replies at 16th January 2008, 4:21 pm :

  Hmmmmm….”guns at universities” is a national issue because someone killed 32 people on campus with a gun. So, let’s let everyone have a gun in their vehicle on campus.

  Of course! Makes perfect sense to me!

  Ro

• 2. Sam L. Martin replies at 16th January 2008, 6:20 pm :

  Hooray for Damron! He realizes that the character Strelnikov was created as a warning, not as a role model. The vehicles in the parking lot kill more people than the LEGALLY REGISTERED GUNS. My weapon of choice is the ballpoint pen. I can ram it through someone’s eyeball and into his/her brain, or I can stab someone in the adam’s apple. I hope ballpoint pens aren’t going to be banned. I would feel helpless.

• 3. Tommy replies at 17th January 2008, 9:20 am :

  Well, Ma, since you feel so nervous around people with weapons, the obvious solution is to carry one yourself. Then no one will start anything with you for fear you’ll pop a cap.

  I hear they do a nice line in pink guns. Just what every woman wants! A pink one, Just For Her!

  [/snark]

  Seriously, though, I don’t know why people feel the need to go around armed all the time. It just leads to excessive violence.

  Are the students included in this bill? Students’ relationships last as long as mayflies. How long will it be before some frat boy decides his girlfriend isn’t allowed to leave him, and go gets his Glock and tries to find her and her new boyfriend?

  Not. Pretty.

  “We don’t live in the wild west, no matter how much some people would like to think so.”

  Quoted for truth.

  Love,

  T

• 4. Max replies at 17th January 2008, 1:55 pm :

  I don’t know much about universities, since I didn’t attend one. But I have a pistol in my pickup truck right now, I plan on stopping by the Shooting Range after work and poke holes in paper targets. I would hate to lose out on my opportunity to participate in the shooting sports, since I’m too old to play softball anymore.

• 5. sherry replies at 17th January 2008, 2:32 pm :

  Damron wants to over-ride the University’s own decision not to allow weapons on campus. I don’t see why that’s necessary, especially in light of all the school shootings we’ve had. He seems to base his decision on this statement:

  “I’ve heard two or three people who work at UK who are concerned that they’re in violation of UK policy because they keep a gun in their car for their public safety,” he said.

  What does that mean “their own public safety”??? At any rate, this isn’t guns for sport.

  For that matter, I don’t see why anybody needs a permit to conceal. If you think you have to carry a gun to protect yourself, why not pack it right out in plain sight?

  The University of Kentucky employs thousands and enrolls thousands, so I can’t see how “two or three” makes any kind of significant minority, let alone a great public outcry.

  I was raised with guns and have no objection to other peoples’ joy in the shooting sports. But I think the feeling that we all have to carry guns to protect ourselves from one another is paranoid and just feeds into the gun culture that causes students to go on shooting rampages so they can be famous. That is just too sad.

  It is perhaps not unusual for upstanding citizens to feel they have to protect themselves from the lawless other. Over at Pocahontas County Fare, Rebecca shares the views of Andrew Price, a late 19th century exploiter of West Virginia’s timber resources. In this case, the concealed weapons were on the other foot (so to speak). The quotation is from John Hennen:

  Like many other modernizers, Price contributed to the negative mountaineer image by focusing on the damage to order and efficiency caused by whiskey consumption and latent violent tendencies. Whether drinking and violence were actually increasing is debatable, and in any case they could arguably be attributed to the social instability of emerging industrialization.

  Nevertheless, Price cautioned repeatedly that “disregard for law and order [is] a real menace; at present there is an era of lawlessness which we must consider seriously. The root of it is the illegal sale of whiskey.” Concealed weapons, another social menace feared by Price, should be controlled by the vigilance of the people: “When you take a revolver away from a hasty youth it is like clipping the claws of a tiger. . . . The condition is such that every endeavor must be fostered and endorsed by every good citizen.”

  Price praised the efforts of the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency in bringing these wild mountaineers to order:

  The Organization of West Virginia Railway and Mine Police, under the management of our intrepid townsman, W. G. Baldwin, and his able assistants . . . will soon cause the toughs of the Tug and other points of the Ohio extension to amend their ways or move on to Moundsville [location of the state penitentiary]. The better class of people in these regions fully appreciate the great work they are doing and lend their aid and influence in every instance.

  Baldwin-Felts, you may remember, was involved in the Matewan massacre.

• 6. Sam L. Martin replies at 17th January 2008, 9:19 pm :

  We wild West Virginia mountaineers. We drink. We fight. We wrestle bears. We dig coal. We’re a surly bunch. Our major bumper sticker says, “My kid can whip your honor student.” It’s hard to understand why–up until the explosion of community colleges in the 1960’s and 1970’s and later–we had more colleges and universities per capita than any other state in the union. We were just a bunch of poor hillbillies–even though Charleston and Boulder, Colorado, were tied in 1960 for the highest per capita income in the United States. And we’re an unruly bunch of gun-totin’ rednecks. If you look at us crossways, we’ll shoot yer ass. No mention is given to the fact that for the 20th century we had the lowest overall crime rate in the country. And we wear shoes, but only if we choose to. Remember, only if we choose to.

• 7. charlie w replies at 18th January 2008, 9:24 am :

  Guns are like alcohol. They make brave men out of cowards. Our grandmothers and fathers knew this. The rule was to use the gun for it’s intended purpose and then put it safely away until it is needed agian. In recent years the sport of “playing with guns”, has mostly replaced hunting. Shooting up a bunch ammo just to hear the noise and see the dirt fly, is a destructive and self-indulgent act. The effect of it on children is the most troubling. Kids are awed by the power of guns. When they see adults who, like they, are similarly awed, it tells them it’s ok to play with guns. I too, was raised with guns. I still own many, but I don’t play with any of them. I even have a KY concealed carry permit. I do not intend to renew it when its paid for time runs out in the spring. Of all the people I took the training with I scored the highest on the test. So I know I’m qualified to safely pack a gun. But like Tommy says, I have never felt the need to carry a weapon on my person. The difference in me and someone who isn’t “qualified” is probably about $150.00.

• 8. Tommy replies at 18th January 2008, 9:25 am :

  Quod Max:

  “I don’t know much about universities, since I didn’t attend one. But I have a pistol in my pickup truck right now, I plan on stopping by the Shooting Range after work and poke holes in paper targets. I would hate to lose out on my opportunity to participate in the shooting sports, since I’m too old to play softball anymore.”

  But no one’s advocating stopping you going to the shooting range, as long as it’s not on University property. This is about allowing guns on campus, a place where they have been and still are prohibited. If this bill goes through, your privileges are going to expand; if it doesn’t pass, your privileges will not shrink.

  Mr. Martin, I do not see how this bill affects you directly. There is not a gun-grabbing issue here, nor is there a jurisdictional issue. You’re in West Virginia, this is a Kentucky bill. Like I said before, if this bill passes, you win; if this bill doesn’t pass, you don’t lose.

  And lest you think we’re a bunch of Yankees here, let me tell you we grew up tromping around East-Central Kentucky. We’ve as much right as you do to go barefoot and shoot small fuzzy things and keep haystacks for rollin’ around in with our second cousins.

• 9. Tommy replies at 18th January 2008, 9:27 am :

  Crap! Stupid tags! Sorry, everyone.

• 10. Helen Losse replies at 18th January 2008, 9:54 am :

  We should put all guns in museums, so we can remember what fools we have been.

• 11. sherry replies at 18th January 2008, 10:00 am :

  I fixed the tags, Tommy. I have the power! By the way, I’ve added a comment preview feature that’ll let you avoid doing that in the future. Hint, hint.

• 12. Sam L. Martin replies at 18th January 2008, 11:54 am :

  Tommy, I live in Kentucky and have done so for nearly 30 years, but I’m still a West Virginian. I live in the woods at the end of a dirt road, one-half mile from my closest neighbor. I carry a gun for the snakes, coyotes, packs of dogs, and hunters who trespass onto my property. I’m probably safer than someone alone in a Kroger parking lot late at night.
  I remember the McDonald’s shooting in Killeen, Texas, a few years ago. After it was over, a reporter interviewed an old Israeli who suffered through the killings. The question was loaded:”Don’t you think it’s terrible that Americans can carry guns?” The old fellow answered, “Hell, no! If everybody had been packing a pistol, only a couple of people would have been killed. Somebody would have shot the guy.” This interview was never shown again. All the other interviews were.

• 13. Tommy replies at 18th January 2008, 4:13 pm :

  Guns on the farm are one thing. Guns on campus are another. Mr. Martin may live half a mile from his nearest neighbor, but I lived three feet away from my roommate all through my college years. Tempers fray. It’s best not to have any sort of deadly implement to hand.

  If there is an incident on UK’s campus and everyone is armed, I just pray that the students show an amazing degree of perception and discretion, in amounts required to avoid a large-scale bloodbath. If they lack organization and discipline and restraint, then it’s going to turn into a free-for-all.

  If you’ve got people telling you Tim’s the shooter, and other people telling you Mary’s the shooter, and some people think you’re the shooter, how do you decide who’s the right one? Moreover, the shooting won’t stop when you plug the real gunman.

  Much better to let the police handle it. At least they won’t shoot each other.

• 14. Tommy replies at 18th January 2008, 4:15 pm :

  “I remember the McDonald’s shooting in Killeen, Texas, a few years ago. After it was over, a reporter interviewed an old Israeli who suffered through the killings. The question was loaded:”Don’t you think it’s terrible that Americans can carry guns?” The old fellow answered, “Hell, no! If everybody had been packing a pistol, only a couple of people would have been killed. Somebody would have shot the guy.” This interview was never shown again. All the other interviews were.”

  Oh Noes!!! Conspiracy!!!!

  Seriously, we need some documentation on this claim, or it’s worthless. I didn’t watch any of the interviews after the Killeen shootings, and I’m not prepared to take your word for it.

  If you’ve got a link to anything that backs you up on this, please provide it.

  Thanks in advance!

• 15. Sam L. Martin replies at 19th January 2008, 7:50 pm :

  “Oh Noes!!! Conspiracy!!!!” Cute. I don’t need to prove what I heard and saw. Of course, if we agreed, you wouldn’t need documentation. If one of my friends and I disagree, I don’t get my feathers ruffled and require his linking me to something that proves his point. I assume that he is an honest man. I listen. We continue to respect each other. We don’t label each other, don’t own blunderbusses, don’t burn people at the stake or banish them to Rhode Island. Of course, we don’t live in fear of “what could happen.” Enough crap is actually happening to demand our attention, but we remain fragmented. At the top of our problems is the environment., not gun control, not gay rights, not feminism, not animals’ rights, not any of the other “movements” that have fragmented us. (Corporate America loves us to split up and fuss at each other. It gives them easier markets to control.) If we got together and worked on one issue, say MTR, we could put a stop to the destruction. One problem at a time, all of us working together. (Please turn to page 343 in your
  hymnals.)

• 16. sherry replies at 20th January 2008, 8:26 am :

  Guns, obviously, strike the emotions harder than the intellect. Score one for the propagandists, who have been able to convince us that the gun control question is all or nothing.

  As an example of how ridiculous we all are about guns, I ask you to consider Dick Cheney potting wing-clipped quail and his so-called friend. What is sporting about that? Or John Kerry trying to prove himself a lifelong hunter. In addition to a religious test for presidential candidates, we also have a macho gun-totin test.

  Emotionally I am closer to Helen, Ro, Charlie W. and Tommy. I don’t want to live in a society in which I have to wonder whether everybody I meet may be carrying a concealed weapon. I don’t want to be afraid that a little road rage and flippin a driver off might get me shot! I don’t want to work at a University where a bunch of liquored up testosterone driven frat boys might have easy access to guns.

  I’ve seen some of what happens when guns, testosterone (or even just adrenaline), and liquor meet. I was not favorably impressed.

  And I would ask you to consider, on this observed anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., that the man who (with a little help from Lyndon Johnson) accomplished perhaps the most revolutionary change in the United States in the 20th Century did so without violence.

  But I also understand that Max and Sam are farm boys. Charlie W, too. Me, too. I grew up on a farm and still live on a farm and understand the need to, say, control the groundhogs that can undermine a barn or ruin a field with their burrowing. I have lived in a time when hunting provided necessary meat for the table. In some parts of the state of Kentucky, I think it still does.

  I would not, however, ever consider shooting a trespasser. That’s why we have law enforcement. I’ll stand — or rather fail to stand — with Falstaff (and Horace). Discretion [aka, running away] is the better part of valor.

  I also understand that Max and Sam and Charlie are, or probably are, veterans and so have seen a side of guns that I never have and never want to.

  And I can, to some degree, celebrate with Rebecca the hunting prowess of the girls of Pocahontas County. Here are some girls, I’d say, who won’t be kept barefoot and pregnant. Though, Sam, they won’t have to wear shoes unless they want to.

  I agree with Sam that the environment is our most important issue right now but it doesn’t trump everything. If we don’t maintain civil order and a healthy economy there isn’t much we can do about the environment. And I doubt our sixfold increase in bombing runs in Iraq is doing the environment much good.

  So we need to discuss these other issues and I appreciate the openness and passion of everybody who has contributed to this debate.

  Enough is enough, however, and I hereby declare this discussion closed.

  Move along folks. Nothing to see here.