Posted 5/01/2007 05:37:00 PM by Douglas

After Virginia Tech, Perry's quick to extend Texas' concealed carry law to places that were previously off limits, such as schools, churches and bars. Good idea? I doubt it, and I'm a gun nut.

Gov. Rick Perry said Monday that Texans who are legally licensed should be able to carry their concealed handguns anywhere, including churches, bars, courthouses and college campuses.

"I think it makes sense for Texans to be able to protect themselves from deranged individuals, whether they're in church, or whether on a college campus or wherever they are," he said.

"The idea that you're going to exempt them from a particular place is nonsense to me."

Perry commented to reporters after he and U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt had met privately with educators, mental health experts and law enforcement officials to discuss the recent shootings at Virginia Tech University. Leavitt and other Cabinet officials are traveling around the country to discuss school and community safety practices in preparation for a report to President Bush.

Here's the disconnect in this argument: I can carry a gun into a church, school, or a bar 1,000 times and no one would have any idea, so long as I acted like a rational person. The day I flip out and go all Cho, I'll wind up on CNN. But if I have a firearm (legal or not) and I plug some dumbass that's between his 12th and 13th victim, no one's going to care if I had a permit or not. Especially the 13th victim. So it doesn't go towards the legality of the weapon, but how you use it.

Cho broke the law by carrying a gun on VT's campus (and then murdered a whole bunch of people) but if someone else had broke the law and double-tapped him in the face, maybe the a few parents wouldn't be burying their children.

Not that everyone needs a gun, but geez, those things exist, and you can't wish them away with federal background checks.