March 7, 2008--Fanaticism XCXII: Shoot-Out at ASU
The closest thing down here to a New York City Chinatown Chinese restaurant is Silver Pond. It’s in a small mall on Local Route 7, sandwiched between Huey’s Sports Bar and the Hawkeye’s Gun Shop.
To tell you the truth, I don’t have that much interest in Huey’s, except maybe marginally when they advertise a wet-tee-shirt contest. But the gun shop fascinates me.
We’ve been going to Silver Pond for years when visiting my mother since it’s only about 10 minutes away from her—around-the-corner in Florida terms. But it wasn’t until recently, though often tempted, that I slinked into Hawkeye’s.
It’s a heck of a place. Not only do they have your basic hunting gear and target pistols but also what I assume are what folks-in-the-know call your semi-automatic weapons. To my untrained eye it looks like a Broward National Guard unit about to be sent back to Iraq could pop into Hawkeye’s and outfit themselves with whatever they need to fight against Al-Quaeda in Iraq. Including all the ammo they need and, if things really get ugly there, enough knives and karate weapons to take on a battalion of Kung Fu fighters if they ever show up among the terrorists. What the salesman told me are sais, kamas, nunchaku, and tonfa. Or whatever.
At Hawkeye’s they can help you get gun licenses as well as permits to carry concealed weapons. All pretty easy in Florida. And they also have a shooting range right there where you can get in some basic training. Through a plate glass window you can watch the guys, and an occasional woman, using their automatic weapons to fire at paper targets that have images of swarthy, intruder-type men with five-o’clock shadows printed on them.
The pistol range shares a wall with the Silver Pond so while you’re downing you beef chow fun you can hear the muffled but nonetheless recognizable sound of all the fun action next door.
So it came as some surprise to me, when just the other day buying tickets to the upcoming SONY-Ericcson tennis tournament on Key Biscayne, to see, printed on the ticket, that spectators are not allowed to bring alcoholic beverages with them—you of course can buy all you want there—but also that ticket holders are also not allowed to bring any weapons, “regardless of whatever permits you my have.” I guess that means there won’t be any of the Hawkeye’s crowd at the men’s semis.
But out in Arizona, if State Senator Karen S. Johnson has her way, you will be able to bring your concealed weapons with you to class at Arizona State University and all the other public colleges and universities in John McCain’s adopted state.
According to a report in the New York Times (linked below) the good senator claims that the massacres at Virginia Tech and recently at Northern Illinois University could have been prevented or limited if only students and even professors there had been armed to the teeth. Since it takes police a long time to get to campus, while waiting for them to arrive, whenever a deranged person starts blasting away in the library or cafeteria, students and staff would be able to take matters into their own hands.
Just to show you how serious and committed Senator Johnson is to her cause, before being persuaded otherwise, the bill she introduced also would have covered all public schools, including kindergarten classes!
Now I don’t know about you, but there’s no way when I went to college that I would have wanted Lionel Trilling packing a gun. That wouldn’t have made me feel safer. He was great at explicating Kafka, but handling a six-shooter? I’m, not sure about that.
And I don’t know about your kindergarten class; but if my teacher, Mrs. Borrell, had been armed I would have dropped out before the first grade. She had trouble erasing the blackboard so I can only imagine what she would have done with a 9 mm Glock 17 semi-automatic with a magazine of 17 rounds--which, by the way is on sale right now at Hawkeye’s.
To tell you the truth, I don’t have that much interest in Huey’s, except maybe marginally when they advertise a wet-tee-shirt contest. But the gun shop fascinates me.
We’ve been going to Silver Pond for years when visiting my mother since it’s only about 10 minutes away from her—around-the-corner in Florida terms. But it wasn’t until recently, though often tempted, that I slinked into Hawkeye’s.
It’s a heck of a place. Not only do they have your basic hunting gear and target pistols but also what I assume are what folks-in-the-know call your semi-automatic weapons. To my untrained eye it looks like a Broward National Guard unit about to be sent back to Iraq could pop into Hawkeye’s and outfit themselves with whatever they need to fight against Al-Quaeda in Iraq. Including all the ammo they need and, if things really get ugly there, enough knives and karate weapons to take on a battalion of Kung Fu fighters if they ever show up among the terrorists. What the salesman told me are sais, kamas, nunchaku, and tonfa. Or whatever.
At Hawkeye’s they can help you get gun licenses as well as permits to carry concealed weapons. All pretty easy in Florida. And they also have a shooting range right there where you can get in some basic training. Through a plate glass window you can watch the guys, and an occasional woman, using their automatic weapons to fire at paper targets that have images of swarthy, intruder-type men with five-o’clock shadows printed on them.
The pistol range shares a wall with the Silver Pond so while you’re downing you beef chow fun you can hear the muffled but nonetheless recognizable sound of all the fun action next door.
So it came as some surprise to me, when just the other day buying tickets to the upcoming SONY-Ericcson tennis tournament on Key Biscayne, to see, printed on the ticket, that spectators are not allowed to bring alcoholic beverages with them—you of course can buy all you want there—but also that ticket holders are also not allowed to bring any weapons, “regardless of whatever permits you my have.” I guess that means there won’t be any of the Hawkeye’s crowd at the men’s semis.
But out in Arizona, if State Senator Karen S. Johnson has her way, you will be able to bring your concealed weapons with you to class at Arizona State University and all the other public colleges and universities in John McCain’s adopted state.
According to a report in the New York Times (linked below) the good senator claims that the massacres at Virginia Tech and recently at Northern Illinois University could have been prevented or limited if only students and even professors there had been armed to the teeth. Since it takes police a long time to get to campus, while waiting for them to arrive, whenever a deranged person starts blasting away in the library or cafeteria, students and staff would be able to take matters into their own hands.
Just to show you how serious and committed Senator Johnson is to her cause, before being persuaded otherwise, the bill she introduced also would have covered all public schools, including kindergarten classes!
Now I don’t know about you, but there’s no way when I went to college that I would have wanted Lionel Trilling packing a gun. That wouldn’t have made me feel safer. He was great at explicating Kafka, but handling a six-shooter? I’m, not sure about that.
And I don’t know about your kindergarten class; but if my teacher, Mrs. Borrell, had been armed I would have dropped out before the first grade. She had trouble erasing the blackboard so I can only imagine what she would have done with a 9 mm Glock 17 semi-automatic with a magazine of 17 rounds--which, by the way is on sale right now at Hawkeye’s.
posted by Steven Zwerling at
8:18 AM
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