We have seen this time after time... There is a guy with a gun in a Business Office, a School, a Public Park, an Airport, a Theatre, etc. and the reports come in on the nightly news about how everyone ran for cover as soon as the gunfire started. Running and Ducking and Covering & Getting the Heck Out of There is the order of the day in the Good Ole USofA.
I read in my newspaper a few day ago where things may be starting to change. Some guy started shooting in a gym and the people in the gym took a new course of action. Here is what the Police Chief said in an interview...
Four shots were fired in the gym and several witnesses took cell phone photos of the shooter in action.
The subject of this posting says this is about A Modern Question of Protocol. Don’t you see it?
The question is, if you are present when the shooting starts and you have a gun in one hand and a cell phone in the other, what is the proper course of action?...
Should you take your gun and shoot the sucker dead or should you make a video with your cell phone and put the video on You Tube so that we can all observe the carnage as it is actually happening?
You can see that this is one thorny issue. I can see the lines being drawn as I peck this out. Many a Discussion Group, Focus Group and Blue Ribbon Committee will be held before a consensus is reached on this one.
(There I go showing how old my thinking is by using the word “consensus”. Is this word still in the dictionary? There is a pretty good chance it has fallen out of Webster’s due to lack of use. I am certain it is no longer in the Congressional Dictionary.)
At first blush most of you would say that the video takes precedence because you are a creature of the times you live in but I have a sense that times are changing in this country. The best example of why I feel change is afoot is the School Prayer Signs that are springing up across the Fruited Plain...
The sign with which we are so familiar reads:
“Prayer Is Not Allowed In This School”
In many school districts the sign has been changed to:
“Prayer Is Not Allowed In This School Until After The Third Shot Is Fired”
Our being allowed to again pray in school, under certain very limited circumstances, is our society edging its way back toward Religious Tolerance.
The Founding Fathers just may stop turning over in their graves after all. I bet they are tired.
Would I kid u?
Smartfella
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