Pen-Elayne on the Web

Gun-Free Zones

You know, a little illusory fame is a dangerous thing. My site stats (visitors, referrals, etc.) seem to be up thanks to the Blogathon and, well, all of you, and now it's going to my head. NYCBloggers has this thing going with the Regional News Network (channel 19 on my local system) where they ask all us NYC bloggers a yes or no question and then we get to blog about it and RNN reads excerpts of our blog entries on the air. So far I've been a little frustrated in that the questions seem so leading and designed to result in rote poll-type responses which tend to shut down the idea of discussion rather than inspire it. But since I blogged last Wednesday about the shooting of NYC Councilman James Davis, I thought I'd take a chance and respond to today's question, which was: Should City Hall Be a Gun-Free Zone?

Well, now you see, I hate guns. I just do. I don't hate people who carry them, I can even sometimes understand their reasoning behind doing so, but I really wish they didn't exist. I'm kinda like Hawkeye Pierce in the M*A*S*H episode "Officer of the Day" back in '74: "I will not carry a gun.... I'll carry your books, I'll carry a torch, I'll carry a tune, I'll carry on, carry over, carry forward, Cary Grant, cash and carry, carry me back to Old Virginia, I'll even hari-kari if you show me how, but I will not carry a gun!" Plus, I'm told, you cain't git a man with a gun, but never mind that. There is absolutely no logic, to my mind, as to why City Councilcritters feel the need to carry around concealed weaponry - particularly if they're outspoken advocates of nonviolence, as Davis was. That's a rather "physician, heal thyself" deal right there. And now he's dead. And his ex-military creepy assailant is also dead because heaven forfend he be subdued any other way than by compounding murder with more murder. Of course, get the guns out of City Hall; these men should never have been allowed to bypass the magnetometer in the first place. And for God's sake get them out of the hands (or, better yet, never put them into the hands) of all these ex-military people who murder their rivals or go on serial killing sprees or whatnot. Mandatory psych testing, folks. There are, there must be, lots of sane people who know how to care for a gun without actually using it; so far they seem to be far outweighed by the wackos. So let's try to make City Hall both a gun-free and a wacko-free zone, 'k?