Thanks for the article from Cronicle.com

Their findings make a lot of sense, but I think their proposed solutions would make little difference.

"...allow students who obtain concealed-weapons permits to carry guns on campus. Presumably, they'll only fire in self-defense."

Cool, lets teach kids to abstain from sex and carry loaded weapons - that'll make them safer! Nothing like a dude with blue-balls and a Glock to make me feel secure. Sprinkle some Paxil or Adderall tweaking the chemicals in his brain and you've got a real fine mix.

After reading this it makes me feel as if maybe American's have just become to dumbed-down, pharmaceutically doped-up and pathologically intolerant to be trusted with such a right to bear arms? It definitely makes me feel we need tighter restrictions on guns - maybe mandatory training and even insurance/licensing similar to what is needed to drive a car or even to sell medicines?

While I support the right to bear arms, I also support the right to not bear arms and would hate to live in a country where that right becomes a need. Between our crashing economy, rampantly declining education and escalating intolerance by large sections of our citizenry - most of which are the ones most heavily armed (i.e. hillbillies and ghetto thugs), my fear is that our real problem of ignorance and oppression (by the upper-class of the lower-class) are to beyond repair to make the Second Amendment feasible for it's original intent. As well as the misgivings I stated in my rant about guns yesterday.

I hate to be considering the loss of a Constitutional Right out of fear which is what I always criticize so others for in terms of privacy rights, free speech rights and so on, but it is a terribly difficult issue to make sense of.

In a nation governed by idiots who were voted into office by idiots what use are the rights we've been given? It reminds me of a great book I read years ago titled "How the South Really Won the War" which chronicled the ideological battle sarcastically illustrated by the popularity of Nascar nationwide, but more importantly at how our nation views religion, education and personal responsibility in regards to community.

Be curious to know any ideas people here might have about bridging the gap between abandoning our rights and dealing with our current state of affairs.

PS - In regards to the "Chronicle" article - How in the hell can an Academic stand watching Fox News? It goes against everything Academia stands for. Imperical evidence to FNC is like salt to a slug.

the greatest run-on sentence ever on a blogsite making the point on what the nytimes article was trying to make a point on the mccain 'scandal'

http://slate.com/id/2185134/

More troubling, however, is the issue of whether McCain's letter may have led some people to worry that other people might conclude that McCain's letter created the appearance of a conflict of interest, as well as the issue of whether the New York Times, in digging up this eight-year-old letter, was creating the possibility that some people might think there was a possibility of an appearance that the Times was suggesting the possibility of an appearance of a potential conflict of interest in McCain's behavior, along with the most distressing possibility of all: that in this very article I may be creating the possibility that some people might worry that other people might think that I have created the appearance of suggesting that the New York Times has created the possibility that some people might worry that other people might think that McCain has created the appearance that some people might worry that other people might think that there could be an appearance that McCain was having an affair with a lobbyist.>