I leave my adopted state, Ohio, for my annual summer sojourn in Germany, and this is what happens! Nothing but lunacy!
Ohio’s Governor Kasich just signed a bill allowing bars to allow people to carry concealed firearms into bars. As Slate puts it: “Because nothing goes better than guns and crowded places …”
Ha! I know an even better combo: guns + crowds + booze + students + beer pong + flashpoints of overt racism. That’ll be the new scene on Court Street, the main drag where my students congregate to imbibe, socialize, and – all too often – get into fights.
Last fall, 0ne of my former students was racially targeted and physically assaulted on Court Street. His tormenters managed to frame him on assault and menacing charges. This Athens News article ably describes the beginning of his saga and hints at the weakness of the case against my student. All charges were ultimately dropped as evidence mounted that he’d been the victim, not the perp. Ultimately he was exonerated. While I avoided writing about his case because I didn’t want to disqualify myself as a character witness, I posted a thinly fictionalized account of how the local jail radically isolates inmates, especially newbies, from the outside world. My student was in that hellhole for a week before he even saw a lawyer (the hardcore folks of course have their attorney’s number memorized), facing racism from fellow inmates, fearing for his freedom.
I now try to re-imagine the whole ugly story with a gun in play. The likely outcome? My student bleeds out on Court Street. An alternative scenario: My student seizes the gun from his tormenter and finds he’s up against high-grade felony charges, even after allowing for self-defense.
Another student, recently returned from Iraq in 2006, was gravely injured (on his head, I believe) by a bouncer at a Court Street establishment. He had to be airlifted to Columbus for treatment. I don’t know yet how his story ends. While writing this post, I did my best to locate him in the Facebookgoogleplex, and I think I might have found him. I’m now so hopeful that he might be living a good life. (I’ll be sure to update if I learn more.)
But again, what if that bouncer had had a gun? What if my thoroughly traumatized student had been carrying, his wits sharp but his nerves frayed from facing down death in Iraq? Two men could have died that night.
What about the goofy, good-natured football player who showed up with his arm in a cast? “Training injury?” I asked brightly. “Um, no, a bar fight.” Gotta admire these students’ honestly. His athletic career continued – in no small part because he hadn’t been riddled with gunshot wounds.
What about a female student (way back in 2003) who took a certain pride in holding her own in “girl fights”? Will her successors all morph into clones of Bree Vanderkar (or Sarah Palin)? Hey, chicks can shoot as straight as any dude! Their flesh can absorb just about as much lead as a man’s can, too.
I realize why this bill passed. The NRA has legislators at the point of, well, a gun. My Democratic and generally progressive rep in the State House said she had to respect her consituents’ overwhelming support for the guns ‘n’ bars bill. Even an abstention (for me, the least-bad path) might have allowed the Repubs to vote her out in the next cycle. And it’s true that bar owners can post “no guns” signs on their doors, which are just as valid there as in any other public space.
But as for myself, I’ll be avoiding the Court Street bar scene, especially past 7 or so in the evening, until it becomes clear whether full body-armor has become the new trend, replacing the standard-issue shorty-short skirts and towering heels.
Patron cat of Kittywampus (1985-2001)
I thought our gun laws were bad (and indeed, they are). When our governor was JEB!–who, when compared to the current RWNJ occupant of the Governor’s Mansion is beginning to look better and better–our state Castle Doctrine was expanded to include one’s car. Meaning, the right to shoot someone, even if he’s unarmed, merely because he enters your castle (house), is now extended to scenarios where another human being breaches the boundary of your car. You can legally shoot someone for getting into your car, in other words.
I often wonder if the brain trust responsible for all the union-busting, social-safety-net-slashing, privacy-rights-destroying, Wall-Street-protecting, and education-denying has ever considered what might happen if people get so fed up and hopeless, they actually decide to revolt, only this will be happening in a country where virtually anyone can buy as much deadly force as he wishes at the big box stores found on every main street in America these days? Do they think they’ve been outfitted with big old invisible bulletproof shields that hover over them seven days a week, like Plexiglas Jesuses or else Popemobiles?
Sorry to be so slow responding, Deborah; I’ve been away from my computer more than usual, trotting the kids out to various museums.
Every time I think Ohio takes grand prize for lunacy, there turns out to be another state (or three) to rival it. You in Florida are really in dark, ugly waters if Jeb is starting to look like a moderate. (Speaking of whom, I wonder when he’ll re-enter politics? Surely he’s not gone for good?)
As for the heavily armed masses, I suspect the wingnuts believe that the folks with the guns are on their side. And they may be right. The number of guns in my household is precisely zero.
I do love the image of a Plexiglass Jesus, though.