jsonline: The gun ban at West Bend's public library has been shelved. Last November, the Library Board voted to keep the building a gun-free zone. Tuesday, a newly constituted board reversed course - minus a member who wasn't confirmed for reappointment because of that earlier vote and two others who resigned. They're strictly banned from schools. Members of the West Bend Library Board decided on the ban ... because they compared the child-friendly library with schools.
But making sense on public policy is no longer important. The following is NOT the way to fight decisions that endanger the general public:
Members Dave Krochalk and Judy Schaar then resigned, both citing a conservative agenda that started with overturning the gun ban.
Ald. Tony Turner, who's just taken his seat as the council's representative to the Library Board, led the charge in April against confirming three members who'd voted to keep the library a gun-free zone. He was quoted in the local newspaper as saying that night that he'd never vote for someone who'd made the library gun-free, a 'criminal safe zone.' When I talked to him Friday, he questioned the judgment of anyone who'd rule against constitutionally protected freedoms' the right to bear arms, obviously, a big one for him.
That's hogwash, of course, since the concealed carry law permits employers and public bodies to restrict where weapons can be carried by posting a notice on the front door. There was nothing unconstitutional about the former Library Board's decision.
Mayor Kraig Sadownikow, who had recommended reappointment of the former members and now is looking for two more, said he has no litmus test ... But he said that in weighing qualifications of potential appointees, defense of the Second Amendment is equally important as defending the First.
Summing up just how I feel about this slide into openly armed civilian public, like some third world nation:
Former library director Michael Tyree put it, 'For me, the criteria of being a library board member is that you're interested in the First Amendment, first and foremost. Open and free access to materials - rather than the Second Amendment.” Besides, 'The crime rate for our city doesn't substantiate the need to carry a gun.'I can hear the drone of the tea party pocket constitutionalists now, "but it's constitutional."
Maybe I missed it, but, what is the problem with removing the "no weapons" sign that did nothing more than created a false sense of "being safe"? What does it say if the library, whose entire existence hinges upon the 1st amendment and the bill of rights, decides that the exercise of other amendments is not allowed?
ReplyDeleteLike your activist conservative supreme court said in the ruling, their decision didn't preclude rules and regulations. Guess you missed that part. Ah the low information voter.
ReplyDeleteSo go ahead, scream fire in the library, and see how far you get.
You still didn't answer the question. You made a strawman argument, and then attacked me personally. I guess I shouldn't have expected anything less...
ReplyDeleteYour arguments are paranoid rantings and silly. I'm mean really, grow-up.
ReplyDeleteLibraries, grocery stores, banks, restaurants, office complexes...all dangerous places to be without protection, right. Afraid of your own shadow? Immature.
Again, I answered your question about the supreme court decision. What is so hard to understand? No wonder you guys will never get it. I know there's nothing I can say, and anything I might say is always "name calling," an old ploy that I will not tolerate. I don't call people names, I tell them the truth.
...oh, what was that? Did you hear that? Run, run like you have never run before, or get out your finely crafted firearm and wave it around to show how manly and "constitutional" you are. Doh, as Homer Simpson would say.
I'll repeat my question. What is wrong with concealed carry? What is wrong with removing a sign that criminals ignore anyways?
ReplyDeleteDangerous places? No, I don't consider any place I go inherently "dangerous". If I felt someplace was dangerous, I wouldn't go there in the first place. The problem is that bad things can happen anywhere. History has shown this time and time and time again. There are a lot of people who are no longer here who would have told you that the church or hair salon or restaurant they went to was not "dangerous", until someone walked in shooting for no reason other than to kill innocent people.
As for the supreme court decision, it allowed for rules and regulations. So, the library board chose to change it's "rule" on the matter, but because it doesn't fit your view it's now wrong?
I only called it "ad hominem" because that's what it was when you called me a "low information voter". But, I'm sure you already knew this. But you chose to respond to that with another strawman argument.
Again I have to ask, what is wrong with people exercising concealed carry or 2nd amendment rights? What is it that you're afraid of?