I’ve often said that this is a great time for anger. With politicians wasting time arguing which party rocks the hardest and the rising cost of everything, it has never been a better time to be mad.
On a related note, this is might be a bad time to be carrying a gun.
By now, I hope that everyone has been introduced to Bill 615. It’s a bill sitting in the Georgia House of Representatives that would allow gun owners to carry their concealed weapons in public as long as they have a permit to carry. Representative Tim Bearden, who co-sponsored the bill, explained that gun owners will finally be able to carry their guns with them to all their favorite places—such as bars, churches, schools, and even Hartsfield Jackson International Airport. Why anybody would need to bring a gun to church confounds me, but apparently it’s a major selling point.
This bill, of course, affects two different groups of people who are completely ignorant of each other: the armed and the unarmed.
Now, I do not own a gun. So let me begin by pointing out that you gun owners do not understand our fear. Guns in the hands of strangers are scary. You might feel safe with the added weight to your hip, but we don’t. We don’t know your intentions and we don’t know your background. All we know is what we see, which is a sidearm and no badge. This is a combination that students really don’t want to see on campus.
I recall an argument that occurred after the Virginia Tech shooting on whether lives could have been saved by gun-carrying students. As if anybody who owns a gun can handle a highly intense situation like a school shooting. If you haven’t been trained, the odds are just as good of you shooting a fleeing student or another hero with a gun. I often say that I could survive the zombie apocalypse because of years preparing for it. This doesn’t change the fact that I could easily wet myself at the sight of an actual zombie horde and bash in the heads of anything that approaches me.
….Not that I would, but I can’t say because I’ve never been in that situation before.
As for the unarmed of Valdosta, you really need to simmer down. The fact that we live in a state with 400,000 gun owners without a daily Columbine proves they’re not all psychotics. The majority are responsible when it comes to firearms and have respect for the lethal force of a gun. They have gone through background checks, received a license from the state, and paid their fees. Statistics show that you are almost as safe with them as any of your friends with a pocket knife. As long as they aren’t as quick to show off their weapon like the knife-carrying population, ignorance is bliss.
Regardless, the fact is that you can’t forget the human element. Bill 615, I fear, would increase the potential of gun-related incidents throughout Georgia and it definitely won’t make the unarmed feel any safer. Just like the more cars you have on the road increases the chance of a collision, so does having more people in public carrying a weapon. So please, Georgia, keep guns out of our schools, our bars, and our airports.
As for gun owners, I’m sorry, but I don’t even trust a stranger with a fork and a light socket. What makes you think I could sit peacefully in front of someone packing a 9mm?