Safe Schools, Texas Style

Give a think on this: only three states in the US do not allow concealed weapons permits. Two states don't require a permit to carry a concealed weapon at all. (See this document.) What's new is the tendency to allow concealed weapons into places where before, in times only slightly less insane than the present, they were forbidden. Just recently, a judge upheld the ban on concealed weapons at the Atlanta airport. But how about schools?

I don't know who's crazier, Bubbaville North (Oklahoma) or Bubbaville South (Texas). On any given day, it's an honor that could reside with either one. But for today, let's consider something going on in Texas, in a place not too far from the Oklahoma border in the booming metropolis of Harrold. The school district there (which encompasses all of 100 students) has approved a policy change allowing teachers and administrators to carry concealed guns to their jobs. Why? Well, the students and other personnel might one day require the "protection" that a posse of handgun-totin' teachers can provide. According to the sheriff he's 30 minutes away, and the school next to busy U.S. 257 could become a "target."

Where to start? Protection from what? Commanches on the warpath? Commies? Terrorists? Muslims? I'm sorry. This is just fucking crazy. This country is shaking in its boots in fear. People are seeing potential enemies everywhere. So what do our leaders do? Attempt to assuage these fears? Hell, no. They offer only one solution: more arms, more bombs, more violence, more repression. Our national government has stoked these terrors at every opportunity. Having the populace afraid has obviously served the purposes of the criminal administration in Washington. A populace stirred up with fear about terrorism is much more malleable to support things like torture, wars in the Middle East, and curtailment of civil liberties. Apparently the spillover effect has leeched all the way to the wilds of northwest Texas.

You know you're living in an alternate universe when you are the one who's considered a nut case because you question the sanity of such policies. I haven't the slightest doubt that on the off chance that anyone down there in Harrold agrees with me, they sure as hell ain't sayin' so.