guns in libraries editorial

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This was in the local Hampton paper yesterday. The library had posted a sign saying "no weapons", but the law says they can not do that. So a citizen is trying to get the city moving by going armed in the library. This writer, Tamara Dietrich, thinks that is wrong, and interviewed a 12 year old to support her opinion.

Idea of taking guns into a library should be shot down fast
Published September 24 2006
It's officially no longer about defending the Second Amendment - it's about rubbing everybody else's nose in it.

That's the upshot as a Virginia gun group stakes out public libraries as the latest testing ground for the right to bear arms.

The state doesn't expressly forbid loaded guns from public libraries. In fact, the state expressly forbids municipalities from banning guns from places not covered by state statute.

But the state either gives gun fanatics too much credit for having the sense God gave a horse or, simply put, it sides with the fanatics.

"We're a nation of laws," Philip Van Cleave, president of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, said in Friday's Daily Press.

"You can't ignore laws. To do so is to act like any other criminal."

And this is the caliber of folks who defend the right to bring loaded firearms into our public libraries - zealots who insist you're either with 'em or you're a criminal.

Van Cleave and his posse can label me an extremist who wants to destroy all guns. Let me shoot that clay pigeon right now.

I grew up around firearms. They're useful, needful tools. Go ahead and buy one if you want. But people who grew up around guns - who are paranoia-free and aren't overcompensating for some shortcoming - don't feel compelled to carry them everywhere they go.

Gun advocates seem to need to be ever ready to kill somebody. That sounds like a good plan in Baghdad. But in libraries?

Even a 12-year-old boy browsing the stacks in Newport News was startled at the idea of fellow patrons being armed.

"This is a library," William Ferguson said in Friday's paper. "People come here to read. Why would they need a gun?"

Last I heard, nobody shoots up libraries. People feel safe there. My son frequents our local library and has never felt an iota of fear anywhere between the Artemis Fowl series and the manga comic books.

Van Cleave argues that having more guns around would make children even safer in case of emergency.

Ferguson's little brother, on the other hand, told reporter Seth Freedland that what he feared were men with guns "running around shooting each other and stealing stuff."

I'm with the kid brother.

The Newport News City Council was told last week by the gun group that the sign barring "weapons" - and by implication firearms - from the library violated state code.

The city attorney concedes that the group might be right. He's preparing a recommendation for the council on how to ban all deadly weapons from the library except firearms.

Last year, Del. Mayme BaCote, D-Newport News, introduced a bill at the request of the council that would have allowed municipalities to pass ordinances to ban firearms from public libraries.

House Bill 1785 died in the Militia, Police and Public Safety Committee.

"Evidently," BaCote told me Friday, "people were in favor of having guns in libraries."

Evidently.

BaCote might reintroduce the bill next session.

Del. Phil Hamilton, R-Newport News, said Friday that he could support such a bill - if it ever made it to the House floor.

"I'm not a gun owner, so my perspective is I don't understand why an individual ever needs to carry one (in a public library)," Hamilton said.

"However," he added, "it is part of our national Constitution, the right to bear arms."

Groups like the Citizen Defense League and the mighty National Rifle Association can wave the Second Amendment all they want, but I'd wager that even Thomas Jefferson would buck at their interpretation:

NRA: Mr. Jefferson! Mr. Jefferson! We must bear arms in our public libraries!

Jefferson: Why, Citizen? Are the British there?

NRA: Um, no.

Jefferson: Is it insurrection? An imminent attack by a foreign power?

NRA: No, not really. We just like to pack heat in public libraries.

Jefferson: What are you - nuts?

The Founding Fathers wrote the Second Amendment because they knew that a well-regulated militia - a citizens army - is essential to defend the country from attack. Not because they saw an armed kook lurking behind every tree or hiding out in the library stacks.

Although, at this rate, that's exactly where we're headed.

Tamara Dietrich can be reached at [email protected] or 247-7892.
Click to expand...

Link to the article:
http://www.dailypress.com/news/columnists/dp-34574cm0sep24,0,2842145.column?coll=dp-news-columnists
 
Great job by this reporter getting the opinions of a 12 year old boy and his little bro.!

"This is a library," William Ferguson said in Friday's paper. "People come here to read. Why would they need a gun?"
Click to expand...

oh and kids go to the park and play...but you read everyday about someone taking a kid from the park

and people go to the mall and shop...but you read everyday about someone robbing someone at gun point

and people stay in their home and mind their own business...and people try to break in and do all sort of unspeakable stuff!!!


I guess this lady thinks that as she walkes down the street all of the BG disappear.:banghead:
 
Yeah, there's a big problem of thugs holding up libraries for the latest non-fiction releases.

Sarcasm aside, I agree that if the law does not permit libraries to prohibit CCW, then they should not do so or post. Having said that, I would hope there would be a more tactful way to force the issue. It *does,* IMO, make the pro-carry crowd look a wee bit paranoid.

K
 
out of the mouths of babes...

Maybe she'll change her mind after the first "Columbine" in a library...?

Quoting kids to bolster policy opinions seems to be the new gambit. I believe Katie Couric did that on 60 Minutes, citing her daughter about Iraq: "Who made us the boss of them?"
 
"This is a library," William Ferguson said in Friday's paper. "People come here to read. Why would they need a gun?"
Click to expand...
I'm originally from Wichita Kansas ... in Wichita (as they have in many cities) they have opened the public library up as a place for the homeless to "get away from the summer heat or chill of winter".

Homeless people are NOT (contrary to leftist media opinion) simply "average Americans who happen to be down on their luck" but are instead mostly seriously deranged, drug addicted men with long rap sheets (often for violent crimes including sex crimes against children).


Yo Fergie ... you gonna leave your wife and/or daughter alone with these people unarmed and defenseless? :scrutiny:


And that still doesn't address the walk from the library to your car (which is what a CCW is really for anyway).
 
There are some editorials that are so obviously appeals to emotion and not rationality that I just don't have the energy to rebuff them. Since she can't mention any examples of CCW permit holders misusing a firearm in a library, I can't really see where that argument is going...
 
Anti Ammo

Quote:

Maybe she'll change her mind after the first "Columbine" in a library...?

------------------------------------------------
If this were to ever happen the anti's would be all over banning guns in Libraries, Just one more excuse.
 
Of course they would, as they always have the same argument no matter where the "incident" occurs. A deranged person with murderous intent is not going to obey a law against guns. A "gun-free zone" is dangerous to your health, being an obvious venue open to criminal abuse.
 
My take? I'm all in favor of being able to carry in libraries -- with a Colorado CWP you may legally do so in Denver -- not because I think libraries are high-risk environments, but because it means you don't have to disarm and leave a weapon in your car or at home.

The fewer off-limits places the better

In fact, as long as a Colorado permit-holder doesn't visit a courthouse, police station or public school (I'd personally like to see the last one dropped from the off-limits list, but that's illogically unlikely thanks to Columbine H.S. :fire: )...they can pretty much put on their firearm in the morning, keep it on all day long, and not remove it until they go to bed at night.

My brother, who lives in another state, lost a loaded firearm (locked in a glovebox) when his car was burgled...in a 'good' neighborhood...in the middle of the afternoon. My firearm has been on my person or in a safe ever since...
 
I was feeling snarky, so I emailed her the following:

---

As a part-time resident of Virginia, I must thank you for writing your article entitled, "Idea of taking guns into a library should be shot down fast". I support the enaction of laws that create gun-free zones, because they keep our children safe. My child should be able to go to a library and feel safe. He really likes to read, and he's there a lot.

The laws disallowing guns in libraries would follow a long chain of successes by similar laws. The enaction of laws such as the Safe Schools Act have kept our children safe by eliminating firearms from school grounds, preventing school shootings from happening and protecting our children. Municipalities such as Washington, DC and Chicago, IL are safer because they have outlawed the possession of handguns, preventing firearms from being used in murders there. Firearms are prohibited by law in post offices, which is why shootings don't happen in post offices. It's obvious to anyone that the laws are effective.

I, like you and dozens of other Americans, believe that the millions of people with concealed handgun permits and carry a pistol everywhere they go are indeed paranoid fanatics and compensating for something - it's obvious. I give you one of the most egregious examples of this kind of paranoia - Ms. Margaret Johnson:

http://www.azcentral.com/offbeat/articles/0908scooter-shoot08-ON.html

In New York City where she lives, it's illegal to carry a gun without a permit (which Ms. Johnson didn't have anyway), and it's illegal to transport a gun loaded. Ms. Johnson, a handicapped elderly woman in a motorized scooter, waited with criminal intent in broad daylight for a mugger to attempt to rob her so she could shoot him with her illegally carried and illegally loaded .357 magnum revolver. She could easily have escaped the robber by rolling away, but she chose to remain and wait until the robber grabbed for her necklace (some sources say that he began choking her, but I don't believe her story at all), so she could shoot him. Her gun was supposed to be locked in a safe at a gun range (or so she says), but her criminal intent and paranoia is telling. The robber was lucky to only be shot in the elbow.

I hope he sues.

I look forward to reading more of your articles.

:evil:
 
Lol, really shows her intelligance doesn't it? Tell her to get her facts straight, and then she can come play hardball with the big boys, but so far, using a 12 year old and his little brother in an editorial isnt newspaper material.
 
I wrote this email to the author. I thought it sounded good, so tell me what you think if you have the patience to read it.

Hello,

I happened across your article about banning guns from libraries on one of the few Pro-2A forums I frequent. I enjoy forums like that because I can interact with people who are like minded and share common interests, but I pounce at threads/articles from staunch anti-2A people such as yourself. After reading your article I'd like to offer up some counter-points you probably haven't considered.

"It's officially no longer about defending the Second Amendment - it's about rubbing everybody else's nose in it."
- I can assure you that when I carry my concealed handgun to the places I'm legally allowed to do so, rubbing that right in everyones face is not on my agenda. I don't pack heat and go around actively baiting people into this controversial subject by asking a bunch of loaded questions, then calling them 'nuts' for disagreeing with me as you call us. I can also speak for the vast, VAST majority of those of us who do carry. Next time, try not to make such a sweeping blanket statement. If you don't like it, move to England or Japan where guns ARE totally banned.

"But the state either gives gun fanatics too much credit for having the sense God gave a horse or, simply put, it sides with the fanatics."
- Why do you insist on calling individuals who believe in something and exercising it a fanatic? Fanatic is such a strong word for someone who demonstrates their legal and constitutional right to do something. Carrying a concealed firearm legally is no different than peacefully gathering to protest, refusing a soldier to quarter in your house, or worshiping whatever god/goddess you choose. Would you call yourself a free-speech fanatic simply because you choose a career in exercising that constitutional right to earn a living? I certainly wouldn't, and I wouldn't label someone who carries a gun and wishes to carry a gun into places a fanatic.

"I grew up around firearms. They're useful, needful tools. Go ahead and buy one if you want. But people who grew up around guns - who are paranoia-free and aren't overcompensating for some shortcoming - don't feel compelled to carry them everywhere they go.
- Guess what else are useful, needful tools: hammers and saws. The most simple and primitive hand tools mankind has to offer can be just as easily concealed and kill someone with the same lethality of any firearm. Believing something to be useful and not using it is simply ignorant. If you wear your seat belt in your car everyday then you must be paranoid that you're an accident waiting to happen. You don't need it every time you drive, but it's nice knowing that if in case you do get into an accident your chance of not being killed are increased exponentially.

"Last I heard, nobody shoots up libraries. People feel safe there. My son frequents our local library and has never felt an iota of fear anywhere between the Artemis Fowl series and the manga comic books."
-I laugh every time I hear an anti spout off about how we pro-2A people are nothing but bloodthirsty berserkers. I don't carry my piece praying that someone messes with me and I get to unload my magazine into his chest, surrounded by gawking and terrified onlookers. In fact, that is the LAST thing I want to do is to kill someone. Yet, since it is legal for me to do so I like having my gun on me when I go out in public. Seat belt hugs make you feel good, and having a gun around your waist does too. You should try it sometime. Also, you're right about one thing - who decides to go on a shooting spree in a library of all places. Theres nothing there to steal, since you can borrow all the books you could ever want, and even keep them! Then again, who decides they want to murder 21 people in a McDonalds of all places? I know I've never felt a modicum of anxiety or fear between the children's play area and the milkshake machine at any of my local McDonalds restaurants, but look what happened to these poor people. And in California of all places!

"The Founding Fathers wrote the Second Amendment because they knew that a well-regulated militia - a citizens army - is essential to defend the country from attack. Not because they saw an armed kook lurking behind every tree or hiding out in the library stacks."
- Your editor let this slide? Granted a well regulated militia was necessary to our fledgling nation some 220 years ago, but times have changed. Back then, you never heard about people murdering pregnant mothers and their fetuses and then stuffing the corpses into appliances. But everyone still carried a sword or rifle to fend off any froggy red-coats. I don't need to tell you we live in a God-forsaken dangerous world and the need for every American to defend themselves has never been greater. You are a naive and foolish person if you believe that there will be a police officer at every street corner there to immediately respond to your distress call from being mugged.

We're not crazy psychopathic murderers just waiting to jump at the chance to 'go full auto' on a murderous gun rampage like a common drug-slinging thug. Self protection is a right, not a privilege.

Thank you.
Click to expand...
 
Thomas Jefferson's advice to his 15-year-old nephew:

"A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercise, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball and others of that nature are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be the constant companion of your walks."
 
I recall a psycho shooting up the public library in Syracuse NY some years ago.
Wasn't legal to carry a gun there then either. Didn't stop him.
 
Guns in Libraries

I think Thomas Jefferson would support firearms in libraries. See Amendment 2. "A right unexercised is a right lost"
-opencarry.org
 
you dont need a lighter in a library.. because you cant smoke inside, but imagine smokers having to secure their lighters in a locked case before entering the library.
they like to imply that its about carrying specifically in a library. its really about not wasting senseless time for senseless rules.
we dont have to prove why we need it. they need to prove why we cant have it.
 
Nope. Nobody ever shoots up libraries.

Family History Library Shooting

http://web.ksl.com/dump/news/cc/lshxap.htm

Family History Library Shooting
A.P. Story

(4/16/99)

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) _ Sergei Babarin, a 71-year-old Russian immigrant suffering from schizophrenia, had run-ins with neighbors and packed a pistol during a fight at a department store four years ago, but police are baffled about why he would choose the Mormon Family History Library for a deadly rampage.

Babarin killed a church security guard and a female library patron from California and wounded four others Thursday before dying in a hail of police officers' bullets.

Neighbors said Babarin, who had lived in the United States 20 years, was often frustrated by his broken English.

"He is apparently schizophrenic and hasn't been taking his medication," Mayor Deedee Corradini told a news conference.

"He didn't say anything. He just came in and started shooting people," said Margaret Kane, who was at the world's largest genealogical library with her husband at 10:30 a.m. when the man opened fire at people in the lobby.

"He just looked intent on what he was doing. He came to do what he was doing," said Kane, who huddled under a desk in the first floor research area as the man roamed the lobby and adjacent classrooms, seemingly firing at random.

"I did not hear him say anything. He didn't call out, no names or anything. He just kept his hand held out pointing at people," said Kane, from Olympia, Wash. The gunman reloaded and continued firing, she said.

Police Chief Ruben Ortega said the first officers arrived two minutes after a 10:32 a.m. emergency call and soon were involved in a gun battle with Babarin. He barricaded himself in an office and again exchanged gunfire with officers.

"That's when he was mortally wounded," Ortega said.

Police Lt. Mark Zelig said the man was not known to have had any animosity toward the church _ that he had only been known to comment that it was strange that Mormons had basketball courts in their chapels.

He said the man had a reputation for harassing people in his apartment building and people who simply were in front of his window.

He said that in May 1998, a bicyclist told police that Babarin stuck an umbrella in the bicycle spokes as he rode by and accused him of being a spy. No charges were brought because the bicyclist did not want to pursue the case. Zelig said the man thought his own son was a CIA spy.

Neighbors and Zelig said the man would say things like "Heil Hitler" and "Hitler was right."

Ortega said Babarin was arrested and charged with assault and carrying a concealed weapon after a 1995 fight at the ZCMI department store in downtown Salt Lake. Zelig said Babarin had confronted a 73-year-old man in a restroom, yelled something unintelligible and tried to bite the man.

Babarin was carrying a .22-caliber Ruger then. He pleaded guilty to carrying a concealed dangerous weapon, was placed on probation and was supposed to have turned the gun in. However, it was not known whether he did or whether it was the same gun he used Thursday.

Police said the gunman apparently had no connection to a yellow moving truck parked three blocks from the library and found to contain two 55-gallon drums of gasoline.

The truck owner, who had been at the library earlier Thursday and argued with an employee, was questioned at length, said Ortega, but was not believed involved in the shootings.

At one point police blew a hole in the side of the truck to inspect the interior.

Babarin's wife of 50 years, Zoya, told investigators he had not been taking his medication for schizophrenia and each day would walk a dozen-odd blocks from their home to the State Capitol and to Temple Square, Ortega said. Zelig said the man stopped taking his medication in December.

Kane said she was "scared to death" when Babarin was firing his .22-caliber automatic, emptying one clip and part of another. "We all read about these people who go around shooting. There's nothing you can do. You just try to make yourself as small as possible."

Lyman Platt, a genealogist, said the gunman entered the library and quickly fired off a dozen rounds.

"He came in the lobby and shot a lady in the head and two or three other men," Platt said.

Said Jacqueline Nelson, a researcher who was working on the first floor: "We heard a pop and somebody said `Everybody get down.' There were 10 or 12 pops and somebody yelled `Somebody's shooting!"

Shots were fired as much as 45 minutes after officers arrived on the scene, at first leading police to believe there might be a second gunman.

Seventeen people on the second floor locked themselves inside when the shooting began _ Kane was one of them _ and were evacuated unharmed early in the afternoon as SWAT teams combed the building.

Babarin was taken out of the building to an ambulance about 90 minutes after the first shots were fired. He died en route to the hospital.

Paramedics at first erroneously believed he might be wired with an explosive and the area was evacuated.

The four wounded included SWAT team officer Brad Davis, who was treated at the scene for a grazing hand wound described by police as "very, very minor."

The church security guard, who was armed, was identified as Donald Thomas, 62, West Jordan. He was shot in the chest as he apparently confronted Babarin. Thomas had worked for the church for 28 years and was due to retire in June.

The second fatal victim was Patricia Irene Frengs, 55, Pleasant Hill, Calif. She was in town with her husband, Jack, who was not believed to have been with her at the time of the shooting, Zelig said.

The wounded include two Laketown women, Theda Weston, 71, and her daughter, Chris Webb, 45.

Weston was shot near the left eye. The bullet circled around the side of her face and lodged in the back of her head, said University Hospital spokesman John Dwan. She was in serious condition.

Webb, 45, was shot in the shoulder and the bullet lodged in her lung. She was in fair condition at Salt Lake Regional Medical Center.

Nellie Leighton, 80, who had been serving a temple mission since March 1998 and originally was from Oakland, Calif., underwent surgery at the same hospital for a gunshot wound to the cheek and was in fair condition.

Police earlier reported a 24-year-old woman has having been wounded, but she only had gone into false labor. She was taken to a hospital and released.

The library, the largest genealogical library in the world, is directly across the street from Temple Square, site of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' Salt Lake Temple and Tabernacle. It has more than 2 million rolls of microfilm copies of census and other records from more than 100 countries.

An international genealogical convention had attracted heavy traffic to the library, which has two floors below ground level and three above. Some 250 people _ patrons and employees _ are in the building on a typical day.

Two groups of school children _ 89 from Vista Elementary in the Granite School District and 95 from Heartland Elementary in the Jordan School District _ were just about to visit the library when the shooting occurred. They were kept next door in the basement of the Museum of Church History and Art. Both school districts sent counselors.

Granite spokeswoman Michele Bartmess said Vista students looked out a window and were upset when they saw victims being loaded into ambulances.

The church's governing First Presidency issued a statement saying, "We very much regret these tragic circumstances.... Our hearts reach out to the innocent victims of this terrible tragedy and to their families."

The church has been involved in genealogy since its founding nearly 170 years ago. The church amasses the records for what it calls the baptism of the dead. Mormons believe that such baptisms give the dead the opportunity to join the Mormon church in the afterlife.

The church said the library would not reopen until Monday.
Click to expand...
 
Ms Dietrich,

You propose banning guns in libraries. Who exactly do you think will respect such a ban? I am a law-abiding citizen, who has carried a gun for years without ever shooting anyone, and certainly not about to go on a rampage in a library. I would respect the ban, because I obey the law.

What about the kind of person who would go on a shooting rampage in a library? Do you think they will respect the ban?

What if such a person does go on a shooting rampage in a library, where your ban is in effect? There certainly won't be any armed law-abiding citizens around to stop the rampage.

That's the problem with the ban you propose. In the absence of rampaging criminals, the law has no real effects, because law-abiding citizens carrying concealed weapons will be indistinguishable from unarmed law-abiding citizens. In the presence of rampaging criminals, the law does have very real - and very undesirable - effects.

You state that you were brought up to regard firearms as useful tools. How exactly are they useful, if they're sitting at home in the gun safe when you need them most?

Winston Churchill said it best: "A gentleman will rarely ever need a pistol. But if he does need one, he will need it very badly."

Sincerely,

antsi

PS: Notice how I responded to your column without using any personal attacks or derogatory innuendoes. I made this polite response, despite your very liberal use of name-calling and innuendo against armed citizens in your column. I am representative of an armed polite society in this regard. What kind of society do you represent?
 
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