My longtime friend and confidant Harley Purvis, he of the booth in the back in the corner in the dark at John Wayne Culpepper’s Lip-Smackin’ Bar-B-Que House of Prayer and Used Light Bulb Emporium in Watson, had a term for the Louisiana House of Representatives passage of HB 602 yesterday:
Bats**t crazy.
And truly, that’s the only appropriate description of this house of morons who can’t seem to pass a budget but can agree that anyone with a concealed permit may enter any public school in Louisiana locked and loaded.
To give proper credit, there were 37 MEMBERS who voted nay on the bill authored by Rep. Blake Miguez (R-Erath) and Sen. Neil Riser (R-Columbia) and another nine didn’t vote.
So, what’s so terrible about HB 602 that it’s got my shorts twisted in a knot?
Well, quite simply, these two idiots think it’s perfectly okay for anyone armed with a concealed weapon to enter a school building in Louisiana—so long as they have a concealed carry permit.
And if you two idiots think you can come after me for libel for correctly calling you idiots, then bring it on, ass clowns. As for me, I’ll shout it from the highest building in Baton Rouge that you never quite completed your potty training before being elected to the Louisiana Legislature.
What person in his right mind, after the horrors of Sandy Hook and Parkland and Columbine, to name only three of the number of school shootings for which we long ago lost accurate count, would ever suggest that it’s okay for anyone, permitted or not, to enter a school building armed?
Somehow, I suspect that this has the fingerprints of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and certainly the NRA, all over it.
Do take a careful look at the vote to see how your representative voted. Out where I live, Rogers Pope did not vote but I have every confidence that had he been present, he would have voted against the bill. He’s a former teacher and the retired Superintendent of Livingston Parish Schools.
Valerie Hodges, from further north in Livingston Parish, voted for the bill but that’s no surprise. She’s the one who voted to give state financial aid to religious-affiliated schools a few years ago and then blew a gasket when an Islamic (yes, Valerie, Islam is still a religion) applied for funding.
From Lincoln Parish, where I grew up, I’m proud to say that Rob Shadoin had the good sense to vote no.
As for Neil Riser, I’ve said before and I’ll say it again, His sponsorship of such an asinine bill is a blatant conflict of interest: He owns two funeral homes.
If I’m reading this bill correctly (and it’s pretty straightforward), it does not permit teachers, administrators, school employees, or students to arm themselves on campus. Well, thank God for small favors.
The bill also says, “Nothing…shall limit the authority of a school board or school to prohibit a person from carrying a firearm, or to regulate the carrying of a firearm, in certain venues or facilities within the school district or an individual school unless the person is otherwise authorized to do so by law.”
So, I suppose the bill still gives the locals some say-so as to the prohibition of weapons on school campuses and in school buildings.
That being the case, what is the purpose of the bill in the first place? Apparently, to open the door (so to speak) to concealed carriers should local school districts or schools fail to expressly prohibit weapons in schools or on campuses.
Present law provides that a concealed handgun permit “does not authorize nor entitle the permit holder to carry a concealed handgun in certain places, including into a school, school campus, or a school bus,” the bill says.
The bill proposes to remedy that by repealing the exception “relative to schools, school campuses, or school buses, but provides that if the concealed handgun (permit holder) is a teacher, administrator, or employee of any school acting within the course and scope of his employment or is a student of any school,” the provisions of the proposed law “shall not be construed to authorize the teacher, administrator, employee, or student of the school to carry a concealed handgun into any school, school campus, or school bus unless specifically authorized to do so by law.”
This, folks, is insanity, pure and simple.
If you have children, grandchildren or if you have a loved one who is a teacher or staff member at a school in Louisiana, I implore you to first, ask yourself what possible reason could someone have to enter a school building with a loaded gun? After you’ve pondered the logic behind that warped thinking, call your senator and demand that this irrational, this madness, be stopped in its tracks.
Call me a bleeding heart, I don’t mind. I’ll take that any day over reading or writing about bleeding children and teachers.
Louisiana Voice 