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The Dodge Factor

Do you really think we should have to worry about being gunned down in a movie theater?  Do you think we would be safer if lots of people in a movie theater carried guns?  Should movie theaters be required to have concrete walls so that the Gunfight at the Rialto Corral could contain the ricocheting bullets, or would it be better if they went on into the lobby or the street?  How do you feel about machine guns?  Or people with any kind of a gun in a bar, or in church?  


Our Supreme Court, in 2008, ruled that you don't have to serve in a State Militia to own a gun, and that you can use it for lawful purposes.  Furthermore, State and Federal governments have a right to restrict firearm use.


One of our former neighbors in Tucson used to sit on his porch and shoot a small caliber rifle at pigeons out over our property.  "No problem!", he said.  "The pellets will not carry up to those houses on the hill, over there."  They did carry up over our pool, or course, but he said he was a good shot.  He also said he carried heat when he went to church.  Religious pigeons, I suppose.  Maybe just to protect the offering plate.  Keep his wife in line.  Let his preacher know just how he felt about his Second Amendment rights, and Old Time Religion.  He said a lot of the ladies in church had handguns in their purses:  cannot be too safe!  Heretics everywhere!


Guns in movie theaters.  Guns in church.  Auntie Myrtle packing heat.  A little protection in the glove compartment just in case someone flips a dangerous finger in traffic.  


Politicians used to try to talk sense to people about lots of guns everywhere, but most people didn't want to listen.  Nothing much is going to happen until most people admit that things are getting dangerously out-of-hand, and that some tough, sensible laws are needed to take charge of the situation.  This isn't Tombstone Territory, anymore.  This is Gabby Giffords home town.  This is Aurora, Colorado.  This is a high school, or a youth conference on an island in Norway, not Dodge City, Kansas.  


Dodging bullets never worked.  Dodging the issue won't work, either.

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