University of Texas Tower. Bloody Red
http://content.answers.com/main/content ... Orange.jpg
Happiness is a Warm Gun
for release 04-17-07
Washington DC
by Lightning Rod
The Virginia Tech tragedy has special resonance for me. I thought I was having a flashback. I'm sure many people are having flashbacks. Some are remembering the Amish students who were recently slain. Some are remembering Columbine. Some are remembering Kent State or the myriad other school shootings of recent years.
But my flashback was to 1966 in Austin, Texas. It was August 1. I was seventeen years old and about to enter my senior year of high school. Two of my school buddies and I had taken a road trip in Charlie's new GTO with the Tiger Paws. We had been to San Antonio and around noon that day we rolled into Austin. It was the first time I had ever been to Austin. We naturally were drawn to the campus of the University of Texas. That's where we figured that all the girls would be.
It had already started when we parked the GTO at the end of 'The Drag.' Guadalupe St runs alongside the campus. The first thing I noticed was that people were running. It looked exciting, so, like the stupid kids that we were, we ran toward the action. My first inkling of danger was when I saw the windshield of a parked car explode. Then I began to hear the shots. There were people diving behind cars. I was one of them.
We were running then and I came upon a fallen girl. She had been shot. I held her hand until help came to move her to safety. She lived, but the baby she was carrying did not. I've often wondered if they included the baby in the body count of 14. More of that story here.
Until the massacre at Virginia Tech, the Austin incident was the worst carnage on a US campus in terms of people killed. Newscasters keep reminding us that this gruesome record has now been shattered. It almost sounds like they want to give the guy a posthumous medal or something?
My friends and I got the hell out of Dodge. We didn't stay around to be interviewed by the cops etc. We went to Lampassas which is just a few miles from Austin. I had family there and we watched the aftermath on TV. We considered ourselves lucky. It was a classic case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I wasn't even a student there. I was just passing through on a sunny afternoon. My point here is that there is no viable method of protecting yourself from from this type of incident. Oh sure, we could create a world where nobody is frustrated and bitter and desperate and where nobody's classmates bully them or nobody's girlfriend gives them the gas. But no amount of gun control or metal detectors or security cops is going to make us safe when somebody cracks and goes berserk. We've had to invent a new idiom for this called 'going postal.'
A friend called me on the phone when the news broke about the VT shootings. Facts were sketchy at the time. Knowing that my friend was a gun expert, I asked him if he thought that one shooter could have made that many kills. He said 'sure, two pistols and a jacket full of clips and I could get a hundred.'
He went further to assert, "If even one of those students or faculty members had been packing, then there would likely not have been so many killed."
I'm no gun fan, but I think he is right. At some point, especially in close quarters and short time, we have to take responsibility for protecting ourselves. The robber or the madman is not going to take a coffee break while you call the cops.
I have to come down on the same side of this as GW. We have the right to bear arms. It is slightly amusing that Bush feels impelled to uphold the second amendment when he pretty well ignores much of the rest of the Constitution. But if more people exercised this right and carried guns, then even a nut with buck-fever like the guy at Va Tech would consider twice before assaulting a group of people when he knows that there is a reasonable expectation of return fire. Manners would also improve.
The Poet's Eye doesn't want to see this tragedy become a gun control issue when it is just a crazy man issue. The Constitution gives us the right to bear arms, not to behave like a ballistic madman and murder people. But things happen. When animals or humans go into rut, or feel the onerous dehumanization of society in some way or become indoctrinated with some brand of religious fanaticism, they take leave of their senses. They do crazy things. My advice is that if you can't make everybody in the world feel good about themselves and life, then you had better keep your gun handy.
Happiness is a warm gun
Happiness is a warm gun, momma
When I hold you in my arms
And I feel my finger on your trigger
I know nobody can do me no harm
---Beatles
