Okay; given how fond we all are here on GMD of gun diaries, I think it’s time to change the record and give everyone a new reason to rhumba.
Few people missed the news that Iowa is now permitting the legally blind to carry guns in public places.
According to the PR director for the National Federation of the Blind:
“Presumably, they’re going to have enough sense not to use a weapon in a situation where they would endanger other people, just like we would expect other people to have that common sense.”
The right of the blind to be treated no differently from sighted citizens is protected, they say, under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Who can argue with that?
Other states, Nebraska and South Carolina specifically, require “proof of vision” in order to purchase a gun. Are they doing so in violation of the Act?
How about it? Have we finally painted ourselves into a constitutional box from which there is no exit?
But before you have fun with that, I have another little gun story that may have missed your attention but certainly makes the mind reel.
I refer to a page 7A story in the Monday Freeps, barely two inches of type, about a gentleman in Pine Bluff, Arkansas who engaged in a stand-off with a SWAT team after threatening two people with a gun.
After the police evacuated the endangered couple, they announced their presence to Monroe Isadore, who was barricaded in a bedroom and immediately shot through the door. The police returned fire, killing Isadore, who was 107 years old!!
I guess, when you’ve had enough bad service from your caregivers, you’ve really had enough; and it’s time to make a spectacular departure.
I was listening to the interview of the sheriff on NPR and he kept saying it was for physical encounters such as shooting the person who’s attacking you from behind. Surely, that’s the sane use that has everyone nodding their head in agreement. But I can think of a whole variety of scenarios where a blind person feels threatened by someone keeping his distance. What good then?
Even though I’m pretty much a Second Amendment ‘gun whacko’, I think these stories you’ve presented are…well, let’s say the Kafkaesque side of the Second Amendment. I’m tempted to write a funny piece about little kiddies’ rights to keep and bear arms. Also, what about people’s PETS? Nah, they’re not covered by the Second Amendment. PETA should look into this, because if animals are armed, they’re less likely to be abused. And what about all this shit about Background Checks on people’s mental health? Don’t the mentally disabled have a right to carry? Especially if they’re on the street panhandling. And I think people have a Constitutional right to carry guns to the workplace too. Keep the bosses in line. And church. Hey, I’ll bet those Westboro Baptist shitheads carry guns to church. And football games. “He’s on the 50!…the 40!…the 30!…he’s going all the way!…OHHH!…Down at the twenty!…Good shootin’, fans!…First and ten.”
Oh boy. I’m gonna get my cane fitted with a .30 cal carbine magazine. I’m old and disabled…and nuts. “Are YOU lookin’ at ME Thank you, Sue.
He certainly did not “go gentle into that good-night!”
Was he suffering from dementia or was he just defending himself from abuse or exploitation? ‘Anybody know the rest of the story?
I posted this diary in the hope that it would prompt a lively but not particularly heated discussion of the “if a tree falls in the woods…” variety.
This has got to be the most counterintuitive argument I have ever read:
“Presumably?” “Presumably?” Frankly, I have come to not expect too much common sense from anyone.
Isadore was just an afterthought because I though it was a wild story…107 years old!! I mean, he was chasing a record!
are still able to see to some extent:
http://www.wisegeek.org/what-d…
So, do completely blind have RKBA?