GUNS: Campus plan fires blanks

At first glance, one wonders what idiot would encourage firearms on college campuses. But a closer look seems to eliminate any doubt: our boys in Boise are the idiots.

Or are they? Maybe it is part of a bigger plan to dumb-down the state so we will keep electing people like our current representatives. Maybe they want us to imagine a Boise State vs. University of Idaho football game where an angry fan screams "Kill the ref!" and another takes him literally. Maybe they want us to think about how a professor might feel handing a failing paper to a student who has a pistol on his hip. Or how about the poor campus cop who responds to a report of a weapon being pointed during a cafeteria argument only to walk into the cafeteria and find everyone from the lunch ladies to the campus chaplain locked, loaded and ready to shoot the first person that moves?

If they can get us to think about such scenarios, then they can get us to view our colleges as dangerous places. That fits quite well into the scheme of dismantling education. When gun toting becomes chic, the unfashionable majority, the unarmed students, will find getting an online degree far more reasonable than walking into the wild west atmosphere of an Idaho university.

That would, of course, make lots of money for online companies and fit right in with Tom Luna's plans to make many more millions for the computer companies that have meddled in the politics of education. They also supported his re-election campaign.

It might also serve to scare people away from education altogether, which would just about guarantee that we will keep electing the same kinds of representatives in the future.

It also makes our elected officials all look like they are simply following the Idaho Constitution that guarantees us our gun rights. How can we criticize them for that? If the NRA likes the new law, shouldn't we? Didn't we send our representatives to Boise to maneuver political issues rather than figure out a way to fund education or fix roads?

Now that the law is on its way into the books, the only problem is deciding whether to invest in the firearms industry or the online computer industry. I suppose a diversified portfolio would be best. Ideally, all those who would have shot the professor they did not like, will now shoot the computer when they get frustrated. Then, when students have to buy a new computer and reload the pistol for another tantrum, smart investors will be making money at both ends.

MIKE RUSKOVICH

Blanchard