In the days since the shooting at NIU, several posts have been made directly relating to the issue of gun-free zones or with self defense as a topic. I'm not referring to the news or Op-Ed blogs. I'm talking about blogs of people I either know or feel like I know because I read their postings daily or several times every week.
Speaker Tweaker wrote his blog post before he had even heard of the Illinois shootings. I think the boy must be psychic. Or maybe he's just reached critical mass for sheeple slaughter. And the delusion of safety in "-free" Zones. In his next post he refers his readers to Marko's blog about "Crazy Loners with guns..." Marko expertly explains what both sides of the gun debate will say in the aftermath of this latest batch of school shootings. He then goes on..., just go read it for yourselves.
Breda talks about the conversations and feelings in the Library on a different University campus. And about making sure she's enrolled for a CCW class. You stay SAFE and legal, Breda!
MattG writes about going out, well, go read it. I know he means it. And I'm proud of him for saying it. It's very much what the Fabulous LaPhlegm is illustrating in her post, including video clip. The deadliest weapon is your MIND. [I think I got that from Col. Cooper, but so many have said it. But I think it was in his Principles of Self Defense I first read it.]
So, I won't go over ground they've already covered, much.
I dropped out of gradual school in May 2002, but all those classes were at night. I graduated from UNT in 1986. All those classes WERE daytime classes. My point? All the University shootings I remember hearing about occurred during the day. Is this because it's a more "Target Rich" environment during the day? If I said that it would be a wild assed guess, but I suppose my guess is as good as yours.
Now 22 years ago, when I was an Undergrad and a young [relatively] mother, there weren't weekly school shootings reported in the media. But, looking through my retro-spectroscope [h/t to AD], I will tell you without any reservations whatsoever...had there been the level of violence on and around Campus then that there is now, I'd have been packin'.
I don't give a tinker's damn what the law is/was. I had two young children to finish raising. When I started classes in '81, the Angel Baby Girl was 18 months old and Son was in utero. When I graduated they were 6 and 4. There is no way under Heaven or on Earth that I would have allowed anything to interfere with my responsibilities as a Mother.
You may think that what I just said denigrates my worth as an individual. I beg to differ. My role as a Mother enhanced my worth as an individual. I would have fought to save my life before I was a Mother. Being a Mother, however, sharpened my survival skills and made me LETHAL. I might have allowed an attacker to live if I could escape, before I was a Mother. While I had small children, if I thought I had to KILL to get away safely, I would have, without a nanosecond of hesitation.
Am I advising anyone else to carry in violation of the law or University regulation? No, I am not. I am just sayin' I would break the law if I was a student today. In all likelihood, on a TX campus, there won't be a shooting. I am bettin' on this since I know just because someone is crazy doesn't mean they are stoopid. There are a lot of my fellow Texans who want to be able to shoot back if a crazy person or an evil person opens fire on their class. They are willing to face the fallout, legal and academic, from illegally carrying on campus. I know my thinking is, "At least I'll be ALIVE to face the fallout..."
Except possibly in Austin, and maybe not even there if the shooting was at TU, I doubt you could seat a Grand Jury to indict in such a case. Even if a D.A. was politically suicidal enough to seek and obtain an indictment, it takes one, just one, person on the trial jury who thinks like me to hang a jury.
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6 comments:
Thanks for the mention, Miss Holly. You should have seen the expression (or lack thereof) on my face when I read Officer Wright's comment. That's how I found out about the NIU shooting.
Eeeeyyuck.
Anyhoo, I'm with you. Ain't too many places I go these days that I don't carry. Most places I go allow it. And if I ever see that I can't, I don't go there. If I were a student abroad, I'd be thinking about a state that allows CCW on campus.
And yeah, the "critical mass" thing's about right.
tweaker
Right on, Holly.
A Mothers love for her children overrides every other skill know to us.
I'd carry to.
NTU, huh? I soda jerked in the new (at the time, since torn down) student center in fittyawtthree. I was a freshman in the new Laboratory Junior high which opened in fall of '51. We lived just east of the NTSTC campus in the bend of the road on Chestnut. I also sold shoes in the Austin Shoe Store on Elm on the square. Small world, huh?
Damn skippy, and thanks for the mention in such a distinguished panel of bloggers. I'm looking forward to reading the specific posts you mention, of the few I haven't already read.
Great points you make-- better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it. I'm ready for our society to rise up and start holding these dirtbags accountable at the scene of the crime.
Myron,
don't know when you were last in town... I think there's a church or a huge apt complex where you used to live...Chestnut St. no longer exists on the East Side of Campus.
And where was the Austin Shoe Store on Elm on the Square? From Hickory to Oak now it's the old Bank Bldg, a bar/restaurant, what USED to be T and Sons Sporting goods and is now a coffee/juice bar, a "Mini Mall" which is like an Antique Mall, a boutique clothing mall, and a bar. So where was the Shoe store in all of that?
Holly, I just looked at Google Earth and Googlemaps and it appears the little house we lived in is still there. With the big oak in the front yard. At least it was there for the last satellite photo. If you're going east on Chestnut in the first block east of Welch where Chestnut jogs to the right and then back to the left, we lived on the south side of Chestnut in the curve where it jogs back to the left.
And looking at the square on Google Earth it looks like they rebuilt it since I was there. I forget what was on the corner of Hickory and Elm but it wasn't a bank. The shoe store was the second store from the corner. Looks like there's a small parking lot off Cedar that is where the shoe store store room was.
And I believe what is Fine Arts on the Square, on Google Earth, was the Texas Theater.
And on Google Earth I saw a photo icon at the corner of Hickory and Cedar and it said "The old Campus Theater". Does that make me old since I was there when it opened? And they had movie night for DHS every Thursday night, I believe.
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