Keeping Public Buildings Free of Guns Proves Too Costly for Kansas Towns the nytimes.com headline proclaims. The idea that public buildings must either provide metal detector-style security theater or drop their gun bans must really rankle the pro-gun control folks at The Old Gray Lady. This is happening in government buildings! That’s where beneficent statists government functionaries work, for God’s sake! It’s not the enemy at the gate. It’s the enemy inside the gate! While savoring the schadenfreude, the paper reveals that “out of several thousand local government entities across the state, only about 160 places had sought an exemption for at least one of their buildings, according to public documents obtained from the state attorney general’s office. Many are hospitals and community colleges.” Liberal bastions both. So . . . let them pay for it. Oh wait. Taxpayers. Drat!
If people in state and federal government buildings were armed there would be less impetus for the nuts to try and murder people in those places.
Im a librarian. Some nut a few years ago brought up the fear of guns and suggested the library ban them. Thankfully the response was something along the lines of “this isnt Mass”
Felt good to not have to quit my job.
If the people in New York City, the supposed majority demographic of the NYTimes, are so concerned with gun keeping those places gun free, let them pay for the exemptions.
Last time I checked the map, New York was no where near Kansas.
I don’t think Kansas even appears on their map.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4d/Steinberg_New_Yorker_Cover.png
Though Kansas City Missouri does.
This is why I mock the gun free zone signs saying the better hire Harry Potter or Hermoine because just putting the sign up is pointless.
For example, say one of our lefties in Wisconsin decided to make good on one of their many death threats against the lawmakers here during our union reforms. Even if the Capitol building had instituted a gun free zone policy (they didn’t for the record), they would not have put in place metal detectors, manned security at control entrance point and the rest. THe lefty seeking to make good on the threats was not going to walk up to the Capitol building, see the no guns sign, and say guess I can’t do this here and turn back. They would just blow by the sign, illegally carry the concealed weapon and commit their murder.
Sad to say, but it’s the same thing the killer did at Sandy Hook. This common sense law say if you want to be gun free, put your money where your mouth is and properly secure your building.
For the record, Harry and Hermione, et al, being the Good Guys AND Brits, used their wands like Tasers while the Bad Guys were free to kill anyone they wanted to.
IMO, the gun-carry prohibitionists have several wildly erroneous assumptions that they use to justify attempts to prohibit armed self-defense away from the home …
Assumption: People are not responsible for their own self-defense. Police are.
If you are not supposed to defend yourself, and you’re supposed to call the police instead, that effectively means that police are supposed to serve as your personal bodyguards. This is impossible and ridiculous.
Assumption: Police have the capability to instantly arrive at a scene to defend people.
Last time I checked, the Star Trek transporter hasn’t been invented yet. Normally in the best circumstances, police are at least a few minutes away. In the worst cases, it takes much, much longer.
Assumption: Bad guys will obey a rule or law that prohibits them from carrying a firearm into a building.
This is just absurd. Good guys will usually follow the law. But the bad guys (be them typical criminals and/or mentally unbalanced individuals) will not, if it does not suit them.
Kansas’ law that requires government agencies to provide a real defense for visitors (as opposed to a metal sign jammed into the ground that says “gun free zone”) if the agency chooses to disarm those who enter the building is absolutely sensible.
I can think of a few more…
Assumption: No one needs a gun at the library.
True most of the time, except when it’s not. And what if I walked there from a bad neighborhood? Or had to stop somewhere else on the way? Are they going to install a lock box at the door? I didn’t think so.
Assumption: Guns just go off.
Unfortunately some irresponsible CC’ers do make this appear to be true. We all know it isn’t. Please carry safely.
Assumption: All disagreements will end in a shootout if the participants have the means handy.
This is probably true of most/many liberals, and possibly the very root of gun control “I know I couldn’t trust myself with a gun, how can I trust anyone else with one?” but the facts are in, and CC’ers do not shoot people over simple arguments. Even less often than cops do. Of course if you do have a hot temper you’re always welcome to not carry a gun.
Your last point is the heart of it….they cant trust themselves. Thats why they want the government to provide for all – then if their lives arent what they want its someone elses fault.
Abrogation of responsibility. Thats all it comes down to.
I work for a Libray system and none of our four locations have any parking lot security. Three of them are in areas I wouldn’t visit at night without carrying and the 4th is iffy. I wouldn’t want CHLers to have to leave firearms in their vehicles to be stolen.
Good additional points.
The thing about “guns just going off” is that, as you mention, people get a skewed impression from some bad gun owners. If a person has a gun and (1) is well-trained in its use, (2) has maintained the gun properly, (3) is paying close attention to what they’re doing when handling it, and (4) the gun is not a cheap piece of %@#$ … then the gun will not go off accidentally. We definitely need some gun owners to take better care as far as handling, training with and maintaining their firearms.
As for Jandrews’ comment, trust is something that anti-gun folks seem to be a bit inconsistent on …
They don’t trust ordinary folks with carrying weapons in public, but they trust that criminals will obey a “gun free zone” sign.
They don’t trust ordinary folks with purchasing weapons, but they trust that criminals will not evade their “mandatory” background checks.
They often don’t trust various levels of government re: spying on Americans, the drug war, police brutality, etc. … yet they trust the government to have control over ALL of the guns.
None of it makes any sense.
If people don’t like guns, they’re welcome to not have them, or not carry them, or prohibit them in establishments that they own. That’s fine with me. But they need to learn not to force their choice upon me.
Along all of these lines –
A gun in its holster is HIGHLY unlikely to go off either accidentally or negligently.
A gun left in a car has to be removed from its holster, greatly increasing the possibility of an ND.
A gun removed from its holster and then unloaded, then later reloaded, further increases the possibility of ND during this process.
A gun removed from its holster and left unattended in the vehicle, even in a small safe, is subject to theft and intentional discharge at inappropriate times and places.
Guns bad, perverts watching porn and masturbating good. The Progressive mindset in a nutshell.
Maybe we should foster the second thought, less chance of them propagating.
And less danger to the public from a negligent discharge.
Isn’t watching porn and wanking it better than rape?
What can you say? It’ stupid NEW YORK .You would think they would figure out why theirMURDER rate was so high.They think it’s guns and it’s Virginia’s fault for lax laws.
Virginia doesn’t have the crime rate of NY cause they are armed.but you can’t fix STUPID!
Wait, Virginia doesn’t have the crime rate because people there are exporting all the guns to New York, right?
We have the same rule in my county in Colorado–the signs read “the display of firearms at this facility is prohibited”. Meaning carry concealed, and you are OK.
So far, there has been NO rivers of blood down the hallways.
“According to the Wichita Police Department, installing metal detectors would cost close to $1 million. The price of the armed security personnel it would take to run those machines was close to $14.5 million a year.”
Wait, armed security personnel? I thought we were talking about a gun free zone.
Damn logic…..
If the New York Times were capable of honesty, their headline would have been “Keeping Peasants in Their Place Proves Too Costly for Kansas Towns.”
Damned serfs! How dare they arm themselves!
New York City will never face the fact: For any governing cabal of the moment, declaring government buildings gun-free zones and providing security is just as bad as telling your teenagers you’re going to China for a month “so be good.” Without providing security? Well, that might be a new form of term limits.
It would be very nice to see this logic applied across the board – if you post your establishment or location as a “Gun Free Zone” then you MUST provide metal detectors at ALL entrances and armed security personnel to monitor them.
Ban gun-related books and magazines too. Thoughtcrime.
I think it is common sense from Kansas. Put your money where your mouth is. Of course the NY answer is as always higher taxes to pay…for the children.
It’s interesting to watch some of the entities in KS try to deal with the new law. Most won’t have a choice but to allow CC. I’m waiting to see how the folks who were granted the 4-year exemption finally come to terms with it, particularly the KS Board of Regents. It still pisses me off that I could be terminated from my campus job for legally carrying and/or defending my life (and the lives of co-workers and students) at work. Just a stupid, stupid situation.
One of the, well, let’s just say, several, things that annoys me about people is that illusion of control. We know that mile for mile, we’re much safer aboard a commercial airliner than driving our own cars. Yet, in our cars, we’re literally in the driver’s seat, so we feel as though we’re in control sufficient to mitigate, if not eliminate, danger to ourselves.
On a plane? Not so much. It’s much too high, there are all of those other planes in the sky, we’re back in coach class, and we wouldn’t understand the physics of lift and thrust, not to mention all those knobs and dials, even if we were in the cockpit. So we white knuckle it and dread every bump of turbulence.
It’s irrational and unuseful and should just be ignored. Or not. As annoying as the illusion of control may be, what if we could turn it around and make it work for us? I’m not suggesting the public should become so accustomed to firearms ubiquity that they treat them recklessly, just that it might be helpful to multiply their presence to the point that the public at least loses its irrational fear of firearms. But how? Aside from provacative AR open carry demonstrations?
How about less provocative Pistol Open Carry, with less confrontations with law enforcement that give the passers by the impression that you are a dangerous law-breaker?
Want to guarantee zero traffic crashes? http://richgrise.tripod.com/images/Safe-Car.gif
Here in hoplophobic MA, guns are allowed in public buildings except those — primarily courthouses — that are specifically posted and have metal detectors. I enter gov’t buildings, strapped up, all the time with zero issues.
The locations where carry is prohibited provide a gun locker where one’s Roscoe may be stashed while in the building. The security staff has been polite and never batted an eyelash when I noted that I needed access to the gun locker. On the other hand, they get totally bent out of shape when I carry a camera into the building.
Democrats to push for background checks for ammo purchases!:
http://cowboybyte.com/27486/california-dems-push-background-checks-ammunition-purchases/
Forget metal detectors… how about tax-payer funded guns and training for librarians?
Then we can all watch as violence against book readers and the theft of library materials goes down. LOL.
Comments are closed.