daemonluna

Because what are us poor librarians supposed to defend ourselves with when bands of roving book thieves come marauding through our doors?

And how are patrons supposed to resolve arguments about who gets to use the computer, or take out that copy of the latest John Grisham book?

Come on, clearly guns are a necessity at the public library!

/sarcasm

The only time I wished that I had a way of defending myself other than the enormous Visual Dictionary we've got was when a man chased a girl into the building after he'd tried to rape her and she'd gotten away. He almost attacked one of my coworkers, it took half an hour for the police to show up, and when they did, they told us to calm down and that it wasn't a big deal. Still, that was an isolated incident.

From:

I hope it's more a case of "good idea, badly worded." (See my recent post about how Ohio's 'nothing else but a straight marriage can be treated like a marriage for legal purposes' amendment could screw up domestic violence claims for ALL unmarried couples. Which is scary because I think Michigan's recent amendment is about the same.)

Also, who's the cutie in your icon?

From:

Yikes. I just had fun stuff like the ten year old who ran in and called 911 during our busiest time of day (about 4pm, weekdays) because this other kid was threatening to beat him up. And yet I'd still go back to the public library in a heartbeat (and am planning on it as soon as another opening comes up).

It may be a cross-borders cultural thing, but the idea of anyone being allowed by law to wander around a public building with a loaded weapon is just mind-boggling to me.

From:

According to the article, right now in Virgina, you can walk into a public building with a loaded gun, as long as it's not concealed. The public library proposed to ban loaded guns from the premises, especially given the large number of schoolchildren on the premises, and the governing board objected strenuously. O_o

From:

You have to remember, it is a constitutional right of American citizens to carry guns. Like it or not, that is the reality. The law can only regulate this (requiring permits and the like); in the state of Virginia, apparently, the main limitation is on concealing a licensed weapon. If someone walks into a library waving a gun around for fun, that's not legal now. It's a threat of assault of some kind, and if the gun's not licensed that's illegal too.

It's a nice idea to keep guns out of libraries, but also schools, hospitals, public parks, churches..... *SWOOF* there goes the slippery slope. What you're really saying is, let's get them all out of the public and that is just NOT going to happen. Particularly, this bill wasn't a response to a specific problem, so why is it needed? The answer is: it's really not. The article said:

"But members of a House panel on Friday struck down her bill that would have allowed public libraries to ban firearms, fearing it would create a confusing patchwork of local laws throughout the state."

As I said before, the best intentions in laws, if not very carefully worded and applied, can have some very undesirable side-effects. And laws that create irregular restrictions on rights tend to cause hellacious side-effects. So it probably was the right move to block it.

From:

Honestly, it's mind-boggling to me too, but there is that pesky statement about keeping and bearing arms.

Slippery slopes go both ways, with the ideal being a very small point at the top.

Six of one and all that.

From:

Poorly worded laws/amendments scare me lots. There was a case of this in Florida recently with some guy proposing that women should have to report all misscarriages to the state... Badly worded, with tons of room for all sorts of sneaky loopholes and additions.

The cutie in my icon is Perfect Tommy, played by Lewis Smith in The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, which I love and adore.

Buckaroo: Tommy, give her your coat.
Tommy: Why me?
Buckaroo: Because you're perfect.
Tommy: *pause* *think* You've got a point there.

It's a movie from the 80s about aliens and War of the Worlds and a guy named Buckaroo who is a rocket scientist/martial artist/brain surgeon/rock musican, who travels around with his band and friends.

I highly suggest both the movie and the book it was based on, and I weep for the lack of a sequel. Oh yeah, and the guy without a shirt in this icon is Tommy.

From:

Ah, I have seen BB, well, when it first out. ;)

From:

I firmly believe that Tommy is the best part of the movie, but then I'm a sucker for his hair and the bare chest.

From:

I don't remember him... I will que it up in NetFlix. ;)

From:

Darnit, I lost a post. >_>

The thing is, having guns helped the American Revolution succeed. There were concerns about the country facing a future invasion, or a dictator assuming the presidency and needing to be removed... (sorry it's simplistic but I hate repeating myself and the other post was more specific and detailed...)

From:

I fully agree about the historical importance of the constitutional right to bear arms.

I just think it gets abused these days, but it's hard to curtail that right for the reason of safety without impinging upon it at the same time.

It's rocky ground, and there's no easy answer.

From:

I concurr that under the circumstances, perhaps setting library policy rather than actual legislation would have been more appropriate.

I think more than anything, more than what's legal and what's a guaranteed right, what floors me is the fact that it's within plausible circumstances that people blithely walking around with loaded guns in public spaces could possibly be a problem. That it's within socially acceptable boundaries to be doing this, and necessitates legislation rather than a panicky and surreptitious call to the police.

Kind of like, we know that you're legally allowed to juggle chainsaws/wander around with megaphones singing loudly and off key/set your own hair on fire, and that people have been doing it in the library. And as of yet, there hasn't been a problem, but maybe we should make a law just in case.

Boggle.

From:

See, we don't have that whole bearing arms thing this side of the 49th parallel. Unless you're talking about wearing short-sleeved shirts. *g* (Random song lyric: "But we get sunburnt when we exercise the right to bear our arms.)

From:

Totally off-topic.... ooh, Methos! *g*

From:

In my opinion, Methos is never off topic. :-)

Here's an icon of him with a gun. See? On topic! Sort of.

From: