Hoo boy! Right after celebrating the birthday of the USA, the Illinois Congress passed House Bill 183. Exciting times we’re seeing here, folks, as Illinois has finally caught up to the rest of the country in passing a bill that allows gay marriage people the ability to walk around with guns legally.
Look, guns have been around for centuries. But their main purpose is to cause death. Death to humans, death to animals, and death to the brains of people who advocate that everyone walk around with one holstered like the world is fucking Tombstone.
Guns fascinate me. It’s incredible to look at and hold a handheld machine that can cause destruction (there is some sort of dirty joke available to all 12-year-olds that are reading this). However, I’ve never shot one. I’ve never needed to. I have never, ever needed a gun. And this, I think, is where there is an issue with concealed carry.
The concealed carry law in Illinois has a number of restrictions. There are 23 areas that guns are prohibited — including bars that receive more than 50% of their sales from alcohol, stadiums, and schools. The ban on carrying firearms into stadiums in this great state is, I’m assuming, to keep people from making rash decisions when the Cubs inevitably give up a go-ahead run in the 8th inning or when Tim Beckman puts Riley O’Toole in the game to hand the ball off when the Illini trail by 27.
With that said, if you were planning on heading to County Market on a Sunday afternoon to do a little bit of shopping, you can pack some heat. Feel free to walk around with an extra phallus holstered and let that 85-year-old who’s eyeing the last box of Twinkies know that you mean business. After all, that law passed because your Third Generation Colt Peacemaker is ready and willing to defend the Twinkies that are rightfully yours.
That sounds absurd, I know. The argument is actually that concealed carry is for the good guys to be able to carry around guns so that they can stop the bad guys. But let’s be honest, you’re not the Waco Kid, I’m not the Waco Kid, and your gun loving uncle is also, probably, not the Waco Kid. A civilian stopping a crime with a gun happens ten times less than a civilian shooting and killing someone in an argument. Seriously.
That simple fact, however, is lost on many people, including public policy genius and president of Illini On-Target (a Registered Student Organization at the U of I) Alex Dapkus. In a Daily Illini piece last week he said sincerely, “The lack of (conceal carry) on campus is dangerous. What with the amount of crime report emails we get.”
Yes. The crime report emails from the U of I. Typically, hours late and uninformative. As a former student, I definitely empathize with Alex here. It would be nice to be in a crime-free area where there isn’t that slight chance that I’ll be robbed of my cigarettes, phone, and my crumpled dollars when I stumble home from Murphy’s. However, when I was a student at the University, I don’t recall getting a crime alert for murder. Ever. So, Alex, I ask you this: is your phone, wallet, and a pack of smokes worth possibly killing someone over? If it is, prioritize things in your life better and let the police officers do their jobs to catch criminals.
Speaking of catching criminals, the shooting that did occur near campus ended without a fatality AND both suspects were arrested. Not one nearby civilian needed to potentially escalate the situation by brandishing his or her own weapon.
As if Dapkus’ previous point wasn’t torpid enough, he goes on to say, “the lack of carry in bars is frustrating.”
Seriously. A president of an RSO, technically a campus leader, is advocating that the bars on campus are not safe enough unless all of the good guys that are there to drink $1.50 rum and cokes have guns on their person. In what alternate reality is giving a bunch of drunks the ability to carry guns a good idea? Even Dean Martin had to sober up in Rio Bravo to take on the bad guys. There’s no way in hell Joe’s or Kam’s or Brothers’ gets safer when you add guns to the mix.
As JFK once said, “Crimers gonna crime.” I think he said that. Either way, it’s not practical or smart to think that arming everyone is going to eliminate criminal activity; and to be honest, I feel pretty damn comfortable in my day-to-day life in Champaign. Crime is ever present, not just in Champaign-Urbana, but literally in every city in America. And yes, of course, the CPD has its share of well-documented issues, but I trust them to deal with crime a hell of a lot more than I trust me (and you) with a weapon.