That said, of course people should actually ask women about gun policies. I know I wouldn’t want concealed weapons allowed on my campus.

The “right” itself goes to our history of revolution against a tyrant who denied it. There is a perception that our 2nd Amendment now guarantees protection against tyranny forever. I believe that while originally well-intended, it is dead in spirit (let’s call it a zombie?)

I purchased my first and only gun in 2005. I remember distinctly the reasons why. Hurricane Katrina was ongoing, and there was evidence of a mass of humanity left to rot there by a government that was more concerned with shooting looters than rescuing survivors. There were pictures of bodies floating, and rumors of Blackwater Guards in control. This was how I imagined that Bush was going to overcome the prohibitions of the Posse Comitatus Act and bring about a theocracy with the help of his pal Pat non-specific drip Robertson.

I had a feeling that the world as I knew it would end soon regardless of anything I did. I expected a ride on a cattle car after the Blackwater guards busted down my door (because I’m a known dissenter with files somewhere, and either pagan or atheist but definitely not Christian enough to make the cut).

So I figured that gun was either the last hope of protection for me and my closest friends, or my final escape. I guess if they are going to round me up and put for burning as a witch, I’d go out fighting in the end. If overwhelmed, at least a single bullet to my own head would have been preferable to burning alive.

We are one Carrington Event away from widespread chaos, which is as bad or worse than any tyrant. I guess I don’t have as many fears now, but it is still comforting to have a way out should I be faced with a mob intent on causing me painful death.

Incidentally, the fatal gang shooting I witnessed in Denver occurred just a few hours after I assured a visiting European friend that not all U.S. citizens are packing heat, and that shootings were just not as commonplace as he’d been led to believe… He was there with us when it happened, and I can only imagine what kind of stories he took home with him after two of us assured him it wasn’t commonplace.

The first time was in college. I was walking through a dark parking lot when out of the shadows a man rushed a woman. I don’t think that either of them knew I was there. She screamed, and suddenly recognized him and laughed. I had about 10 seconds of doubt thinking I was witnessing an attempted rape. That said, I might have pulled it but not actually fired. Sometimes all you need is the threat of violence for deterrence.

The other time I thought I was being shot at. For all practical purposes that is how I experienced it. I was working late at night at a small bed and breakfast as resident innkeeper when I heard the sound of breaking glass. Then a second and third explosion of glass and as I started to investigate, I found myself looking at a man pointing something at me through the front door window.

I had just enough time to throw myself on the ground and heard/felt the glass of the window blow out over me. I crawled through the glass and into a basement stairwell to call 911. The police were frustrated I couldn’t describe the attacker who fled. In the end we found out he was shooting out windows with a wrist rocket and not a gun, but it took finding the stones to believe it. Since this B&B had a cowboy theme, I asked the boss for permission to pack some heat, but he refused. I probably would have fired in that instance if I’d been armed.

So I got some mace, and not a month later needed it to deter someone who was drunk and determined to cause me harm. In that case, it served as deterrent and I didn’t have to use it. The group of people who assaulted me that night threatened to come back, and that threat meant I could not sleep peacefully for years.

A few years later I witnessed a fatal gang shooting in downtown Denver. It had taken quite a few years to get over the trauma of the previous assaults on the job. I ultimately ended up getting EMDR treatment.

The PTSD from the first incident of being shot at manifested as extreme fear of the dark, particularly any time I was inside a lit building near a window at night. I would visualize myself looking back through that broken plate glass window and seeing the hole in it in the reflecting of my face, being unable to see anything beyond.

So I’ve got some ambivalence toward gun ownership.

P.S. Sorry for the length of this comment. I had more but stopped myself.

I wonder if they considered the scenario in which someone — male or female — gets nervous and fires off a round at an innocent bystander. I imagine someone, even two people, walking back to the dorm or the parking lot from class or the library after dark, seeing someone whom they deem suspicious, and, emboldened by the idea of waving a gun around to ward off this “suspicious” stranger, end up killing another student also walking home from class or the library. Heck, even they could be the “suspicious” stranger.

Or, to build on that rape narrative, a girl sick of a guy not taking “no” for an answer could pull her gun out of her backpack. These d00ds never imagine that they could be perceived as the bad guys. They just assume that “good” and “bad” are clear cut.

I also wonder if any of them have actually seen someone shot by a gun, or been shot themselves, or had any experience at all with guns other than in theory or on the firing range. Seriously, when someone elects to carry a gun, they have entered a whole arena of life and death that they may not fully comprehend.

Denver completely decriminalized possession of small amounts for even non-medicinal use a few years ago. The dispensary business is really exploding here, with investment coming from out-of-state (that I know of personally) and possibly out-of-country (rumored in the news). It is going to be interesting to see how Mexico’s decriminalization experiment affects their current problems.

I can believe that some Libertarians have the helm at the Denver Post… pro-gun, pro-pot, anti-government. Yep. That fits like 75% of the ones I’ve met.

Did you see this mini-editorial on the CU NERF gun rules?

That was the most bizarre gibberish I have ever read in a major newspaper. It read like the ravings of some blind-drunk d00d staggering around in a bar at 2AM, careening from Nerf gun-fighting to cursing football coaches to good samaritans with defibrillators. Do they provide unlimited bong hits for everyone in the Denver Post editorial offices?