Would you believe?

About 4:00 this afternoon I was standing in Library Square, pointing a gun at Clark Aposhian (yes, THE Clark Aposhian) and yelling “freeze”, “stop” and “back off” at the top of my lungs.

Yup, I was.  Full disclosure, though.  It was a plastic imitation of a Glock, and there were 4 other people pointing their imitation guns and screaming at him.  We were recreating an activity we performed during the Concealed Carry class that I attended today, for a news camera from an Australian TV station.

Yeah, they offered the CCP class free for teachers again, and I decided to take advantage of it.

I don’t own a gun and I certainly never will carry one into my classroom, but I was very curious about the whole process.  I was apprehensive when I went down to the Salt Lake City main library today.  I expected to be surrounded by total gun nuts and be fed a day full of NRA rhetoric.  I was pleasantly surprised.

I was there from 9 AM to after 4 PM, they even brought in lunch for us and there was probably only about 20 minutes of NRA rhetoric that had me rolling my eyes.

Clark Aposhian was charismatic, funny and sometimes downright reasonable (even to my liberal, anti-NRA self).  The day went pretty quickly, mainly because I found the class informative, interesting and entertaining.  Clark acknowledged that many of us would never bring a gun into our classrooms, didn’t try to convince us that it was our duty or even that we really should, and thanked us for just being there and considering it.

The morning was spent on gun safety, responsibility and defensive behaviors that would help us avoid the need to even pull the gun.  We also discussed the uses and responsibilities of carrying a gun into the classroom.   He didn’t right-out say “don’t be a dumbass and try to take out the shooter in a chaotic crowd of kids”, but he did say that we should follow the district policy for a lock down and use the gun if the shooter breaks through the door.

The afternoon was spent on the legal aspects of using the gun.  What is, and isn’t, “reasonable force”.    Where we could carry it and who had the right to tell us not to bring it there.  He asked when it was legal to kill a person, and then explained it was never legal to kill a person.  This may seem like a technicality, but to me is was a big change in thinking;  You are allowed to use reasonable force to prevent another human being from doing you, or someone else,  personal harm and if it results in their death, so be it.  But saying things like “If someone did that, I’d kill them.” can end you up in trouble.  Because whenever you shoot someone it’s an assault, and killing someone is murder.  You may have justification but, like he said many times, you’re going to have to explain yourself.  And the prosecutor is going to talk to all your family, friends and co-workers, and comments like “I’d kill them” aren’t going to bode well.

There were a lot more examples, but I’ll sum it up by saying that I was surprised at how much of the conversation was geared towards not using the gun you have a permit for.

Finally, if I ever do get a gun, I know which one I’m going to get.

Look at the name on the barrel and you’ll see why (click on the picture so you can see it).  They had one of these for us to look at and hold, and I started laughing when I noticed the name on it.  The guy showing it to me was a little relieved when I explained that it had the same name as me.

So, now I have everything I need to get a Concealed Carry Permit, all I have to do is write a $46 check and send it in.  They even gave me the big envelope.

Quelle duh, # deux.

Usually when I read an article about some parent suing the school, I think “Oh, great, what are they blaming us for now?”

But as I read this article in the Salt Lake Tribune this morning, my thought changed from “Here we go again…” to “Why the hell did they need a real gun as a prop in a school play anyway?”

The school was doing the play “Oklahoma!”  They needed the sound of a gunshot to come from offstage and the administration let them use a real gun with blanks in it.  They had safety procedures in place, the gun was kept in a locked box.  It was only to be handled by an adult, during transportation and for the actual shots.  Good for them, but frankly it would scare the hell out of me to even have a locked gun around teenagers.  They are notorious for doing stupid things, even the ‘good’ kids.

You could argue that the kid is really to blame.  He broke into the locked box, he handled the gun when he knew he wasn’t supposed to and he was stupid enough to shoot it off.  And all that is true.

But why even take the risk when there is absolutely no need to?  The gun would never be seen, they were going to fire it off stage.  It would have been a lot easier, and safer, to just use computer sound effects.  I Googled “gun sound effects” and got over 13 million results in .14 seconds.  I clicked on the very first link, and they had about 75 free downloadable MP3 files.

I’m sorry.  Normally I’m on the side of the educators, who usually are doing their best to provide a safe environment for all their students.  But in this case, in an attempt to provide authenticity to a play, it was a stupid risk to take.

You have got to be kidding?

Ok, I can understand getting mad when someone cuts you off in traffic, forgets to use their turn signal or drives 55 in the fast lane. I can hardly go to the store these days without getting angry at some bonehead or self-centered maneuver. I can even get my mind around the concept of losing control and doing something, well, illegal and dangerous because of this anger. I can't excuse it, but can conceive it. But this guy in Murray has some serious, and I mean SERIOUS, anger management issues.

Imagine this: You're driving down the road and you pull up to the light. The guy in the car next to you rolls down his window and motions for you to do the same. When you do he asks "Pardon me, do you have any Grey Poupon?" (That's a line from a commercial in the 90's). What do you do? Yeah, that's what you or I would do. Mr. Anger-Management pulls out a gun, cocks it and says to the kid in the car "Here's your Grey Poupon, roll your f*#!&*n windows up!" Personally, I would have just laughed or handed them a quart of motor oil and said "Sorry, this is all I got." But then I would have missed out on the 3rd degree felony charge of aggrivated assault. I hope they take away his concealed weapons permit.