George Carlin Said It Best:
"Some people are £µ©λin' stupid.
Then there are the people--they're not stupid--they're full of $#17.
Then there's the other people. They're not stupid, they're not fulla $#17 ... They're £µ©λin' nuts!
Dan Quayle is all three."
Today you might add Charlie Crist, governor of the latest state to advocate responsible gunplay in the workplace.
Crist signed into law a bill allowing workers to bring their firearms to work. The gun must be locked in a vehicle in the parking lot. Under the law you could conceivably ride your motor scooter to work and padlock your .45 to it.
I've always felt that Florida needed a high fence around it, possibly electrified. Dave Barry can relocate to Canada by smuggling himself up in a snowbird's fifth-wheeler.
Florida business groups are sick of this shameless pandering to the National Rifle Association, and point out that the Governor has just made it impossible for them to comply with their duties under federal and state laws that mandate the first duty of an employer: Namely, to ensure a safe working environment.
But the really interesting thing is the comments at various news organs, where teh crazy burns brightest, with a spooky green-blue glow like a rotting ham under a full moon in the Okeefenokee.
Many of these people justify their desire to bring their penis extensions to work because ... are you ready for this?
What if a "disgruntled" worker brings a gun to work?
As Dave Barry says: I am not making this up!
I'm not going to get into the whole melée scenario (y'know, where one guy shoots a madman, and several "heroes" blow one another away).
I'm just going to say that if I were a Florida employer, I'd be making plans to move my parking lot at least two miles from the building.
Stupid. Full of $#17. And £µ©λing nuts.
Labels: Arguments, Corruption, Disgusting, Disturbing, Heroes, News, Picanthropii, Politics, Power, Psychology, Random, Rednecks, Responsibility, Sickening, Stupidity, the art of the blog
posted by Metro @ 10:28 am
7 Comments:
... and it's not fun being an Alligator in Florida either ...
No, it's apparently not.
First, let me insert the caveat that I hate guns. Would never own one, and have been known to threaten the spousal unit with bodily harm or withholding carnal needs if he ever gets one. If it were up to me, there would be no such thing as a gun.
However.....
There was a situation here in Colorado a few months ago where some nutjob was going around shooting up churches. At the last church in Colorado Springs (the only place in the state I can think of where people would think of taking guns to church), he was taken down by another churchgoer who I believe had a gun in his car. Far fewer people were harmed at this last church than at the other churches the killer had hit. That has to count for something.
I think it's worth pointing out that the majority of gunowners who abide by the gun laws are also responsible gun owners. And if some disgruntled employee wants to shoot up his workplace, he's not going to give a shit whether or not it's legal to keep a gun in his car at work.
Need to lump all the legislators who passed that bill in with the governor as idiots as well.
@STTD
Yes those dopey bastards are as bad (in fact, since it's a dead cert that many of them are paid shills for the NRA, they're considerably worse), but the governor had the veto.
In the New Life church shootings, an armed security guard repeatedly wounded the shooter, who then shot himself.
And that's fine. I have little trouble with security guards (properly trained and vetted security guards) carrying weapons on their hips in plain sight. Of course, there are a great many places I don't feel security guards need to be. Church is one of them.
As an aside--who was this woman, to thwart God's plan to send some of the Faithful home early?
Back to our muttons: The idea that the guy with the hairtrigger temper and the NRA bumper sticker has his gun a few steps from work would be likely to have a chilling effect.
The problem is primarily the ridonkulous ease of acquiring lethal weaponry in the States regardless of one's mental state or prior convictions. Both the New Life shooter and Seung Cho were demonstrably crazy.
I believe that a "responsible gun owner" is just one who hasn't gotten pissed off or gone crazy enough to use it yet. And the type of person who feels a need to own a handgun, in my experience with a very few exceptions, is already demonstrating their unfitness to own one.
Adding more guns to the mix merely ups the potential for bloodshed.
If arming civillians was such a great idea, why not make it mandatory? Everyone must carry a concealed weapon at all times, subject to a fine for "failure to present arms".
That way, all criminals will be thoroughly discouraged, give up, and go home.
Most citizens aren't posessed of the judgement to allow them to make life-or-death decisions about other humans. That power should stay in the hands of cops (and be exceedingly tightly controlled at that--but that's another post).
The issue is not whether enraged employees care about whether it's legal to shoot up their workplaces. The issue is that an employee reacting to, for example, a boss who tells him his job is hanging by a thread, should have a little time to drink off the angry before he can get his hands on a weapon.
But it doesn't sound like this law adds any more guns to the mix. It just changes where you can legally keep them. Which isn't going to matter to the guy who's willing to threaten his boss with one anyway.
My husband owned a handgun when we first started dating, and he's one of the most responsible people I know. He also saved his mother from being harmed in a house invasion with it - also another post. So I'll respectfully and vehemently disagree with your opinion about responsible gun owners.
As far as guns being in the hands of cops only, it's been my experience that there's often a fine line between law enforcement and criminals. That doesn't make me feel warm and cozy and safe either when it comes to life and death decisions.
I do think that there should be some intense psychological profiling as part of the gun permit process. But that, again, only impacts law-abiding citizens. All an inspired criminal has to do is pay off a greedy but sane person to get their gun.
Honestly, though, do you know any gruntled workers? Sounds like evolution just sped up.
Indeed. The oddest thing is that when you "take away the guns from the honest men, only the criminals will have guns."
And you still get fewer shootings.
The NRA has a research team trying to figure that one out, no doubt.
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