Legislative Towel Snapping
Observing the Utah Legislature can feel like you’re standing in one big locker room with a bunch of boys snapping towels at each other’s behinds.
Case in point: Check out Pleasant Grove Republican Rep. Craig Frank’s blog under a February 4 post titled “Who’s Packin’ on the Hill?” (A tip of the hat to LaVarr Webb and his Utah Policy Daily subscription newsletter for sending me to this site.)
What’s wrong with this picture(s)?
For one thing, the legislators are not identified. But then, the anonymity is part of the little-boy charm of conceal and carry. You don’t want anyone to actually KNOW you have a gun in your waistband. That would spoil the element of surprise. You remember the game of cops and robbers, dontcha? You wouldn’t want the bad guys (Democrats?) to find you out.
What’s worse is the element of poor taste and total insensitivity while this city, this state, is still reeling from the massacre three days ago at Trolley Square. Five innocent people shot dead by a lone teen gunman. Four remain hospitalized with serious to critical injuries. Survivors of the dead are holding press conferences to describe their grief and to sketch the lives of their loved ones to the public. They stand before the cameras, run their hands through their hair, and sob.
Meanwhile, the dead gunman’s family tries to explain to the world how being Bosnian and Muslim had nothing to do with Sulejman Talovic’s rampage, and to please refrain from acting out survivors’ rage against their immigrant community in Salt Lake City.
But ha-ha-ha, we’ve got our locker room lawmakers yucking it up with their on-line poster for packin’ heat.
Check out the posted comments, too, where our gun-toting pols are lauded as heroes and brand names of handguns are bandied about and compared like so many flavors of beer (or perhaps more befitting of our Legislature — ice cream.)
These people are pathetic.
I’m not writing this to engage in another fruitless debate with gun freaks about their Second Amendment rights. And I am certainly not interested at this moment in dissecting whether more people should or should not be carrying weapons as a result of this tragedy. That discussion has already begun for many. But for me, it’s far too soon to get my arms around those topics. I remain numb, sick in the gut over this whole horrid event.
And to anyone who wants to argue that Frank and his friends can’t be criticized because he posted the item a full week before the shootings occurred, OK. I’ll give him that. He couldn’t have known, of course. But then ask yourself this: Wouldn’t a person with a half-ounce of sense and a smidgen of decorum remove the item from his blog in the wake of Trolley Square?
It’s worth asking. It’s also worth wondering why we keep electing to the Legislature a bunch of latent adolescents who would rather measure each others’ guns than effect positive change in a deeply troubled society.
February 15th, 2007 at 10:14 am
Perhaps a good metaphor would be Faye Dunaway holding Warren Beatty`s gun as a phallic symbol in “Bonnie and Clyde”. I`m sure the repub cretins also compare barrel length and caliber.
Utah`s gun culture has a flavor of its own, but even California with much more restrictive laws ( no more AK-47s or Uzis )has failed to stem the violence.Pandora`s box is wide open and it would take an effort similar to Australia`s to stem the tide ( real background checks, no handguns and valid reasons to own ANY firearm ).
On a much more edifying note; Keith Olbermann has a new contract with MSNBC (”Countdown”). Sort of an Edward R. Murrow with panache. His description of W. as a Forrest Gump with Tourette`s syndrome is perfect.
February 15th, 2007 at 11:38 am
I suspect that gap between our legislators’ cartoonish Yosemite-Sam gunslinger posturing and their constituents more sober gun-related attitudes is wider than most folks suspect.
As an example, when I taught Social Psychology at The U about 10 years ago or so, I divided the class up into those who were generally in favor of gun control and those who were generally opposed. I chose this particular attitude topic because I needed an approximately 50/50 split and thought it would produce it.
I was grossly mistaken. About 85% of the class was staunchly in favor of relatively strict gun control laws. And most people in the anti gun control group were quick to dissociate themselves from the more extreme positions taken by the NRA.
The University of Utah is a commuter campus composed of people who are roughly representative of Utah as a whole. I recognize that psychology majors are perhaps a bit more liberal than the populations as a whole; yet is was striking that there wasn’t a single “Yosemite Sam” in that class.
Why do we appear to have several dozen of them in our state legislature?
February 15th, 2007 at 11:42 am
Just read your response on Frank’s blog, Holly.
Way to let that clown have it!
February 15th, 2007 at 2:37 pm
Just a thought: I didn’t see any one “packing” involved in what happened at Trolley Square?
February 15th, 2007 at 8:10 pm
I am far from a Frank or gun-nut supporter and I did not find his original post amusing, but to me, there’s a material difference between posting a gun piece after the shooting and not removing a post from a week earlier. Apart from my discomfort at suggesting that a blogger should take down a post based on its content, I want an accurate record of what our “representatives” are saying. I want to be able to show that Frank made light of concealed weapons on Feb. 4. I don’t want a sanitized version.