What is the Answer?
From: robert n lyman <rlyman@u.washington.edu>
Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 10:26:41 -0800 (PST)
To: <gildewell@sptimes.com>
Cc: <letters@keepandbeararms.com>
Subject: "Workplace bad enough without a gun around"
Regarding your article in the St.
Petersburg Times, Columns: Workplace bad enough without a gun around http://www.sptimes.com/News/102801/Columns/Workplace_bad_enough_.shtml.
Mr. Gildewell,
Your Oct. 28 column seems calculated to provoke an angry response from the gun-rights
community. I will attempt to be more polite than my own anger ought to allow.
Let us leave the Constitution aside
for a moment and look at your factual premises. You imply that guns in city
buildings will inevitably result in fatal shootings over trivialities and political
differences of opinion. Do you have any evidence to back up this assertion?
Are fist fights or knife fights common among city employees? If guns have been
permitted up until now, have there been many shootings?
It seems to me that you make the
(utterly false) assumption that people who are not ordinarily violent will become
so if they are allowed to carry a firearm. Does Florida's experience with concealed-carry
reform support this view? (In case you don't know, the answer is an unequivocal
NO). Does the nationwide practice of arming police officers turn all of them
into murderers? Obviously not. If people are not currently engaged in using
physical violence to settle disputes over stoplight timing, it is exceedingly
unlikely that the mere presence of a gun on one or more belts will cause such
violence to erupt. I suspect that your fear of guns in city offices comes from
a secret prejudice against gun owners. I can see no other reason to fear the
decent people who work in city offices. Can you refute that charge?
Finally, you say, "I'm sure
that Zephyrhills City Hall gets its share of walk-in crazies, including some
who aren't on the City Council, but armed city employees aren't the answer."
What is the answer, then? Should the employees facing an armed criminal simply
lay down and die? Should they wait for police response -which might take several
minutes, more than enough time for the "walk-in crazy" to kill 20
people? Oh, and by the way, do you favor disarming cops who come to the city's
offices, or just employees? Why should self-defense be a privilege reserved
just for those who wear badges?
The Constitution has nothing to
do with it. Banning lawful concealed carry in city offices will only make them
an even more tempting target for violent criminals angry at the city. Allowing
it poses no risk so long as the armed employees meet the same requirements that
other concealed-carry licensees meet. There is no reason to attack law-abiding
gun owners in this shameful and counterproductive way.
Robert Lyman
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