The Advocate in Baton Rouge reports that the House Appropriation Committee found room for some extra spending while it was recommending cuts to Louisiana's colleges and universities . . . and cuts to Medicaid, a veterans nursing home and biomedical research.
* $75,000 for the city of Zachary for an economic development master plan. * $50,000 to the city of Central for economic development planning. * $25,000 for the Louisiana Arts and Science Museum operations. * $100,000 to improve the intersection at Florida and Sherwood Forest boulevards. * $400,000 to improve Coursey Boulevard between Airline Highway and Jones Creek Road. * $100,000 to improve the intersection at Jones Creek Road and Coursey Boulevard. * $25,000 for equipment for the Baton Rouge Fire Department. * $75,000 for the Pride Fire Department. * $50,000 for park improvements for the city of Denham Springs. * $50,000 to the McKinley High School Alumni Association for youth outreach activities. * $20,000 to the American Muslim Mission of Baton Rouge for a year-round farmers market in old south Baton Rouge.
I'M SURE the old, sick veterans are especially excited that they're getting screwed over so that the McKinley High School Alumni Association might reach out and touch some yutes. Not to mention so that the Muslims will be able to hawk asparagus for Allah in the 'hood.
Get into a discussion about poverty or social dysfunction among most any group of white folks, and it won't be long before someone prescribes the "bootstrap" cure for what ails "those people."
This is especially true back home, in the Gret Stet of Looziana.
AFTER ALL, as eeevvverrrrybody knows, God helps those who help themselves. It's in the Bible. Somewhere toward the back. I think.
Well, if that's how things work in Heaven and on earth, then what are we to make of a state that's at the bottom of all the good rankings and at the top of all the bad ones? What do we make of a people who kill one another at a faster-than-average clip, elect a frightening parade of crooks and buffoons to public office, and are disproportionately poor, ill and uneducated?
And what of a place that never seems to get a clue about the importance of public education, or of honest government, or of a diverse economy, or of just having roads and cities that don't look like out-of-control landfills?
While we're thinking about it, what do we make of an electorate that alternates between idolizing amusing scoundrels or looking for a political messiah to magically lift Louisiana out of the civic poo after it's (yet again) crapped in its own bed?
NOW, TO A BUNCH of average Louisiana Bubbas -- and, for that matter, to your average gaggle of Uptown Brahmins -- the answer is simple enough if you're talking about a poverty-stricken single mother of five who's not of the Caucasian persuasion.
Keep your knees together, get a damn job and quit waiting for the taxpayer to solve your damn problems.
But what about when a whole state of four million (and shrinking) is a basket case? If God helps those who help themselves, can we then assume -- to borrow from the right-wing's favorite African-American preacher-- that God hasdamnedLouisiana?
If we're willing to bring down holy fire and brimstone upon the pitiful minority wretch who has squandered the assistance money on Colt 45 and cigarettes, and who drives Junior to his preliminary hearings in a welfare Cadillac . . . what, then, of a chronically ignorant state that has squandered 300 years of human and natural riches? And which, when it's budget-cutting time, always slashes the essentials and protects the chaff?
Proposed higher education budget cuts could "cripple" Louisiana's public colleges and universities if they are adopted, according to officials at the state Board of Regents.
Subcommittees of the House Appropriations Committee have recommended a total of $116 million in budget cuts, and nearly $70 million, or about 60 percent, are education related.
The House Appropriations Committee sets ordinary operating expenses each fiscal year. Members are scheduled to discuss House Bill 1 this Sunday.
The cuts are in response to a legislative directive to trim 5 percent from Gov. Bobby Jindal's executive budget.
"It just doesn't seem equitable that the best strategy they (the legislators) could come up with targets educational institutions," said Commissioner of Higher Education Joseph Savoie.
Approximately $31 million in proposed cuts would come from public colleges and universities, meaning higher education would absorb about 23 percent of the total reduction in budget.
"Any reduction would naturally have a negative effect," said Dan Reneau, president of Louisiana Tech University, who has survived 13 budget cuts during his tenure.
"For the first time last year we had 100 percent funding. To go below that — it just doesn't send a good message to the faculty," he said.
Reneau was referring to a formula designed to fund state colleges at an average comparable to institutions in the 16-state region known as the Southern Regional Education Board.
Based on 2006 figures — the most recent year data is available — the board set the average at $6,213 per student at four-year institutions. The average at two-year colleges is currently $3,150.
However, several variables affect the exact amount from institution to institution.
To maintain the SREB "at average" level, 16 schools across the state would need an additional infusion of funds this year, including Louisiana Delta Community College.
Delta stands to lose about $150,000 in funding, said Savoie.
"Prior to last year, we were well below the average. We've been working toward (100 percent funding at the SREB average) for a long time," said Savoie. "This idea of retreating from progress is ridiculous."
AS NOTED in an earlier post, no less an authority than retired LSU baseball coach Skip Bertman easily identified Louisiana's self-fulfilling mentality of shiftlessness.
A profile of the soon-to-be-former athletic director in 225 magazine noted that "from his bosses to his players, from the governor to the maintenance crew that chafed under his daily calls for updates on Alex Box, Bertman has noticed something about Louisiana: Mediocrity is accepted."[Emphasis mine -- R21.]
The article went on in damning detail:
“When the past governor and the one before her say, ‘We want to get to the Southern average,’ I think, ‘Our goal is to be average?’” Bertman says. “I’m not putting them down, and I understand what they mean, but you can imagine how that sounds to me. I’m not saying I could be governor and not have to say that, but in baseball I could do it.” Bertman recalls having to convince his 1984 team that they were unique and capable of achieving their goals. Two years later LSU finished fifth in the country, and by then all his players had to do for a confidence boost was put on the uniform.
IF BERTMAN IS RIGHT -- and he is, you know -- then it just doesn't matter how much American taxpayers pay to rebuild broken levees, or how high the new levees are. It doesn't matter whether American taxpayers pay to rebuild New Orleans, or put Louisiana homeowners back in rebuilt homes.
It doesn't matter whether the American taxpayer pays to rebuild south Louisiana's ruined infrastructure or rebuild its crappy roads and highways.
It doesn't matter whether we pay outrageous gas prices or sky-high air fares to vacation in the Bayou State, stuffing our already overstuffed American guts in its restaurants and braving the state's crazy-high sales tax to buy Looziana geegaws and tacky tee shirts.
None of it matters, because no matter how the American taxpayer tries to help the Gret Stet, the stupid bastards will just screw themselves up again -- it's in their nature. It has to be in their nature, like Skip says.
Who else but some basket-case, doesn't-have-the-good-sense-God-gave-a-jackass, knuckle-dragging, moron, metaphorical welfare queen writ large would make higher education take 60 percent of proposed budget cuts?
Especially when you're already a basket-case, doesn't-have-the-good-sense-God-gave-a-jackass, knuckle-dragging, moron, metaphorical welfare queen writ large.
Tell 'em to grab their bootstraps and pull.
Isn't Louisiana the state whose educated young people are fleeing in droves? Isn't Louisiana the state already woefully short on intellectual capital -- and workers capable of meeting the needs of a high-tech, information-based economy?
Isn't Louisiana the state that's already chasing after all sorts of economic development but -- when corporate America asks "What do you have to show me?" -- the only thing she can resort to is lifting up her shirt?
After all, God helps those who help themselves, and Louisiana hasn't done much to help herself. Why the hell should the American taxpayer be more generous than God?
Tell 'em to grab their bootstraps and pull.
And when Gov. Bobby Jindal goes to Washington and gives the guardians of our cash a song and dance about how Louisiana is stiil hurting and, by the way, it now has "the gold standard" of ethics laws? Particularly when that "gold standard" is a big sham that may look good but actually is worse than the "crap standard"?
Tell 'em to grab their bootstraps and pull. LISTEN, LOUISIANA. This is the United States speaking. We can't help you. Your problems, with the exception of the New Orleans levees, are self-inflicted. We can't fix that. Hell, we can't even get Hillary Clinton out of the Democratic primaries.
As any good ol' boy in your neck of the woods knows, your problems will be solved when you get off your lazy asses. In that vein, take an interest in your own governance, have a little pride in yourselves and your state, for God's sake, and just damn fix it.
Here's a helpful hint. Education is important, which you might have figured out for yourselves if you weren't so fuggin' ignorant. Don't cut that. Otherwise, just grab those bootstraps and remember that God helps those who help themselves. Certainly, your legislators must know a little something about helping themselves.
When a politician allows himself to be sold to the voters as a "messiah," watch out. The only thing you can be sure of is that's exactly what he ain't.
IN LOUISIANA'S gubernatorial election last fall, it seemed the biggest things Bobby Jindal had going for him were the aura of competence and relative honesty. It is starting to look as if the great tragedy of Louisiana's gubernatorial election last fall is this was the best of a sad lot from which to pick.
WAFB television in Baton Rouge reports on what may be the latest act in the Gret Stet's ongoing tragedy -- or comedy, take your pick. Let's call it either Oedipus Dreck or The Importance of Seeming Earnest:
A few key words passed by the legislature could pull the rug out from under Governor Jindal's most important accomplishment - ethics reform. Legislators changed the standard of evidence needed to find someone unethical from "reliable, substantial" to "clear and convincing." So, what does that mean?
The change from just "reliable and substantial" evidence needed to "clear and convincing" could mean fewer people get punished for breaking state ethics laws. So, what does Governor Jindal think of all this? We had trouble getting answers. Governor Bobby Jindal's press secretary, Melissa Sellers, would not let us speak to the governor Friday for answers to our questions about ethics reform. The governor received the Golden Mic award from the Louisiana Association of Broadcasters, which is where 9NEWS tried to get comments from him. He's been called Louisiana's golden boy and he says he set the gold standard for ethics reform. "I think the legislature and the media got tired of me saying "gold standard," but it was important we did indeed set that gold standard."
However, political analyst Jim Engster says if Jindal does not speak up and help fix this crucial ethics standard of evidence change, his golden status could melt away. "Many would think it's much easier to convict somebody of ethics charges under the old standard, so instead of the gold standard, we may have something less than that," Engster says. He says starting August 15th, Louisiana's ethics laws could actually get weaker, instead of stronger. The state's legal standard for finding someone unethical would change from reliable, substantial evidence needed to "clear and convincing" unless legislators make an amendment this session. "There isn't a lot of time to address this and the governor could make it happen in a hurry if he wants to," Engster says.
And now, the suffering citizenry of Louisiana might be staring "The ethics reform that ain't" right in its smirking face. That's the problem with voting for a messiah: There's only been one of those who was worth a damn.
He came around some 2,000 years ago, and He never campaigned for the job.
Being that that's not going to happen again -- the job has been filled, and it's a permanent gig -- wishing and hoping (and voting) for an earthly messiah to fix all what ails you is the most foolish of fool's errands. And if the definition of insanity is doing the same damn thing over and over but expecting a different outcome next time, then what Louisiana is really asking for is Nurse Ratched.
I guess legislators in my home state also missed the memo about how, in what used to be called Christendom, we don't mutilate people as punishment for crimes.
THAT'S ALL ABOUT to change in what -- when I wasn't looking -- must have become the Islamic Republic of Louisiana, as this Associated Press report indicates:
The most serious sex crimes should be punishable by castration, with drugs or surgery, the Louisiana Senate voted on Tuesday.
The bill by Sen. Nick Gautreaux, D-Meaux, would give judges the option of imposing chemical castration on those convicted of sex crimes including aggravated rape, simple rape and indecent behavior with a juvenile. Chemical castration would be mandatory on second offenses, and the offender would have the option of choosing physical castration instead.
Senators voted 32-3 to send the measure to the House.
(snip)
The drug treatment would be mandatory on a second offense, though a medical expert would have to determine that the treatment would be effective.
Once ordered to undergo the treatment, the offender would have the option of physical castration — which Gautreaux said some offenders might prefer to avoid any drug side effects or in hopes of permanently curbing impulses that led to his offense.
WELL, IF THIS BILL becomes law, and if the Gret Stet becomes truly vigilant about ferreting out and prosecuting sexual abuse, the population of some corners of, say, Livingston Parish might be decimated.
And if you fail to get my drift, let me just say that 25 years ago, while working on a news story in that parish, I had a school administrator tell me -- without any hint of humor or irony -- what a horrible problem his school faced with incest. That, sadly, only confirmed what was common knowledge about that neck of the woods at the time.
Last I heard, incest is a sex crime -- even in Louisiana.
So let us hope for swift and vigilant enforcement of the Louisiana criminal code. In a generation or three, we well might be rid of the kind of inbred morons who can elect an assembly such as this.
Louisiana state Sen. Derrick Shepherd is so concerned about young men in droopy pants showing their asses -- or at least their drawers -- to God and everybody that he thinks there ought to be a law.
While it's been in fashion for years, the saggy-pants look also has been an affront to many authority figures, including state Sen. Derrick Shepherd. After losing a vote on the issue in 2004, Shepherd is again trying to pass legislation to ban droopy trousers.
"All the different municipalities around the state saying they want it tells me that a state ban on this type of idiocy is needed," said Shepherd, D-New Orleans.[Marrero, actually. -- R21]
About a dozen Louisiana municipalities have enacted or are considering their own bans on "sagging." They reason that those adopting the dress are emulating the beltless look of prison inmates, that baggy clothes could conceal weapons or that exposure of underwear is offensive and just plain indecent.
Not all cities are joining in. St. Martinville Mayor Thomas Nelson said leaders there have decided against a ban, fearing a lawsuit.
"My concern was - don't get me wrong, I'm not for the saggy pants - you're leaving yourself open, especially with the (ACLU)," he said.
Indeed, the American Civil Liberties Union has consistently opposed efforts to ban low-slung pants and helped defeat Shepherd's 2004 effort. The ACLU will oppose it again this year, the head of its Louisiana office, Marjorie Esman said Friday, citing issues of freedom of expression and concerns the law would be used to target black youths.
"I welcome a challenge," Shepherd said. He dismisses complaints that the law violates the First Amendment or that it could be used to target young black men who adopt the fashion.
"I've heard that from some more liberal-minded blacks and some liberal-minded whites," said Shepherd, who is black. "But my counter to that is: Why is it that we believe that young black men or black women, whoever would show themselves in such a manner, can't simply follow the law and pull up their pants?"
The future of his bill is uncertain. Aside from any court challenges, and the Legislature's 59-34 defeat of his last effort, Shepherd faces a new distraction in his fight for moral rectitude. On Thursday, he was indicted on money laundering and fraud charges. Shepherd proclaimed his innocence and will continue serving while fighting the charges.
LOUISIANIANS MUST BE pretty amused by our amusement at just how ass-backward one state can be. Otherwise, they'd be mortified at their own civic, educational and economic ineptitude and insist that their elected representatives worry instead about pulling up Louisiana's abysmal education statistics, pulling out of a vicious cycle of crime and poverty, and pulling in a new culture of excellence and honesty.
And they would make sure the indicted senator from Marerro got a nice pair of day-glo orange Sansabelt pants as a thoughful cell-warming gift. Just the thing for the well-dressed felon.
If you want to cut a state budget, the logical place for a chop job would be all the places you can least afford it, right?
Only if you're a legislator in Louisiana.
SOME OF THE STUPIDEST members of the Stupid Party -- which, to tell the truth, could be either one in the Gret Stet -- plan to slash higher education and health care budgets to save a lousy $250 million out of a $30-plus billion spending blueprint. This in one of the stupidest and sickest states in the nation.
Which goes a long way toward explaining a lot of things, actually.
Gov. Bobby Jindal's $30.1 billion budget plan is facing friendly fire from his allies in the state House of Representatives, who are proposing to save up to $250 million by cutting planned spending on higher education, health care and other priorities.
House Speaker Jim Tucker said the goal is to reduce the state's reliance on non-recurring money to pay for ongoing programs in the fiscal year that starts July 1.
Tucker, R-Algiers, said doing so perpetuates spending policies that Republicans frequently criticized under former Gov. Kathleen Blanco. "It's got a number of members very concerned (because) they didn't get elected to continue the same-old, same-old," Tucker said.
DEAR JIMBO, I know you may not have gotten the memo, but when you get elected on an anti-same-old, same-old platform, that DOES NOT mean people want you to be an even bigger dumbass than "Mee Maw" Blanco was. When a state lags horribly behind the rest of the nation in education and health care, you don't go around crippling education and health care.
At least if you have a problem with the people around you being disproportionately ill-educated and just plain ill.
A spokesman for the Louisiana State University System said it would mean a $36.6 million cut, and that individual campuses are in the process of combing through their various programs to decide where to trim.
"The impact would be dramatic, if enacted," LSU System spokesman Charles Zewe said.
IMPACT. DRAMATIC. That for a university system that isn't even funded to the Southern regional average. I wonder what the state's GOP legislators plan for the health-care system?
Hospitals with no doctors?
Wheelchairs with no wheels?
Now, if cut $250 million they must, there are ways to do it without sacrificing, say, excellence in education or badly-needed facility upkeep.
Trouble is, the Louisiana Legislature isn't even close to dreaming of having the cojones to pare back the ridiculous number of public universities for a state of 4.2 million people and emptying out fast.
The state, of course, needs the LSU system. And it needs LSU-Baton Rouge as its "flagship" university -- the pre-eminent academic and research institution.
Excellence matters. I know Louisiana has little experience with excellence, but trust me on this. Other states "get it" -- even if many Louisianians don't.
BUT DOES LOUISIANAneed Nicholls State University an hour's drive from the University of New Orleans? Does it need McNeese State a hour down the interstate from the University of Louisiana-Lafayette?
Couldn't Southeastern Louisiana University be changed into a smallish liberal-arts college? Couldn't LSU-Alexandria and LSU-Eunice be integrated into the state's fledgling community-college system?
Should the all-but-destroyed Southern University-New Orleans have been reopened after Katrina? Should not the historically struggling historically black school now be folded into UNO or closed altogether?
Which brings us to the 800-kiloton nuclear elephant in the room.
CAN LOUISIANA really afford, both financially and sociologically -- for all intents and purposes -- one state-university system for white people and another for African-Americans?
What, in a larger sense, does this really say to a state where not only isn't the past really past, but neither is Jim Crow?
I understand the rationale for historically black colleges. I do. Likewise, I understand their heroic and proud history.
And I don't think that history ought to be ignored or these universities' role completely relegated to the landfill of days gone by.
That said, the sheer duplication of facilities and programs between "white" and "black" institutions -- usually right next door to one another -- is insane, not to mention increasingly unaffordable on any number of levels.
So here's a modest proposal.
Because it just isn't feasible, culturally or politically, to kill off the oldest such school, Southern University, it stays as is. Indeed, it possibly could be enhanced with some of the resources of closed "white" schools.
On the other hand, it doesn't need a law school. Not unless someone could come up with some desperately needed, specialized niche it might fill -- being, as it is, right under the nose of the much larger and much better law school at LSU.
That leaves Grambling State University, another school that has a proud history but has suffered from terrible leadership in recent times. Grambling, just a short drive down the road from Louisiana Tech in Ruston.
How. In. The. World. Do. You. Objectively. Justify. That?
My solution: Merge 'em . . . probably on the present Louisiana Tech campus. But call the combined institution Grambling State University and commemorate the proud role that school played in educating a people once deliberately cut off from the "mainstream" of public life.
That leaves LSU-Shreveport and Northwestern State as the last candidates for major realignment. I don't see how you can justify the existence of both.
So, how about a compromise? LSU-Shreveport could merge with Northwestern State in Natchitoches, where the new school would remain. It would be brought into the LSU System, would be renamed the University of Northwestern Louisiana and would have a satellite campus in Shreveport.
THAT'S HOW you save money without needlessly sacrificing infrastructure or educational excellence. It's not brain surgery.
It does, however, require a few things not usually associated with my home state's governing class -- political will, intestinal fortitude . . . and wisdom.
Take the guy who set his eye on a 14-year-old girl. He wanted her somethin' bad. But there was a slight problem, apart from her being just barely 14. He was 22.
And to make things worse -- at least from the perspective of such a "monster" -- was that the relatives who took her in after her mother died were about to send her off to boarding school. So he ran off with her.
Worse than that, they were second cousins.
And worse than that, the poor child had a child by the time she was 15 -- just barely.
IF BOBBY JINDAL had been governor, the horndog would be in jail for a good long time and then, after that, would have to wear a scarlet penis for the rest of his life. And, with the exception of some nooks and crannies in the bayous and piney woods, a cry of "Damn straight!" would arise all across the Gret Stet.
Just one thing, though.
Romeo and Juliet: SVU were my maternal grandparents. They were married Dec. 24, 1905, and stayed that way until my grandfather died in 1956.
They never had it easy, not with 15 kids over the years and a Great Depression, to boot. Yet, 11 children made it to adulthood and all of those survived to old age. Two are alive still.
Not bad work for a sex offender and his victim.
OBVIOUSLY, times and mores have changed, as is evident in this story from WAFB television in Baton Rouge:
We found a man who is considered a sex offender by law. He asked to have his identity protected, so we'll call him "Sam." Sam says he is not a monster and should not be behind bars. "When I was 18, I did not research the law to find out if it was okay if I slept with a 14-year-old. I did not know that. That's why at the time, I made a stupid decision," he says. Sam says he was in love with his 14-year-old girlfriend. He met her at church. They dated. Then, he says his feelings for her got out of hand. "Before I know it, I got arrested and everything and then I caught the charge. Immature. I take full responsibility and I should have known better, but sometimes you put yourself in a situation and it's hard to go back sometimes."
Sam served five years probation, with counseling and psychological evaluations. Eventually, a local judge determined Sam was not a threat to society and waived his charges. That was about 12 years ago. "Then, all of a sudden, they came with a letter saying I have to register as a sex offender." The state Legislature passed new laws in 2004 to disregard court-appointed waivers and force people like Sam to re-visit their past. "When does my life move on? When do I escape the shadow of my mistakes?" he asks.
YOU'D HAVE TO THINK that someone smart enough to have graduated from Brown and then Oxford, like Jindal, would know that there are sex offenders, and then there are sex offenders.
"Sam" in the Channel 9 report broke a law by acting upon a natural impulse with a girl who also was a teen-ager. It was wrong, by our contemporary standards, and there were rightful consequences.
But "Sam," and those like him, are no more "dangerous sex offenders" than was my grandpa, who broke no law in 1905. My grandfather was in love with my grandmother, and he eloped with her before her uncle could send her off to a convent . . . not boarding school.
Of course, Bobby Jindal does know better -- just like he damn well knows that "contemporary standards" are a recent innovation in all corners of a state where modernity still fights a mighty battle to fan out from a tenuous beachhead.
What Louisianians need to remember is they're not so far removed from the days of the Southern demagogue, who curried favor with the booboisie by railing against the black man -- or, alternatively, Standard Oil -- all in a bid to line his pockets and build a political empire. If the ordinary voter got anything out of the deal at all, he found -- too late -- that it came with a great (and previously hidden) cost.
SO WHY is Bobby Jindal demagoguing the "sex offender" issue -- and in the process hiding genuine societal threats amid a fog of injustice that will envelop a bunch of people who did something stupid, but not unnatural, when they were kids?
That's what I want to know about this "reform" governor who held so much promise but is quickly degenerating into just another doctrinaire Republican, dispensing the same old stuff from the same old GOP manure spreader.
Naturally, the Louisiana Legislature probably will be stupid enough to pass this Jindal foolishness unmolested. Just like some God-fearin', prevert-bashin', good ol' boy will watch the Channel 9 report and yell "Damn right they need to lock up them PREverts! Kill them sumbitches!" at the TV set.
Right before he gets that quizzical look on his face, turns to the wife/shack-up/girlfriend, and sayeth:
State legislatures need to come with "black box" warnings, much like pharmaceuticals with potentially deadly side effects -- when stupid people get a hold of them, really bad things can happen.
And with Ernest Wooten in occupying a desk in the Louisiana House, that black box ought to cover an entire side of the 34-story state capitol. This story in the Baton Rouge Advocateis scary testimony to that:
Proposed state legislation would make it legal for some students and faculty to carry handguns on college campuses as a “deterrent” against the wave of college shootings in Baton Rouge and nationwide.
State Rep. Ernest Wooten, R-Belle Chasse, is proposing the controversial bill that could arm more people on campuses from dormitories to classrooms.
“We’ve got a problem,” Wooten said, “and maybe it’ll be a deterrent if one of these disturbed persons or whackos thinks, ‘If I go in shooting, they may shoot back.’”
In the last few months, two international students at LSU were murdered in their on-campus apartment. Weeks later, a Louisiana Technical College student in Baton Rouge murdered two students in a classroom before killing herself.
The recent string of college murders nationwide began with the rampage murders of 33 Virginia Tech students last year.
State Commissioner of Higher Education Joseph Savoie said Wooten’s proposal is going in the wrong direction. There should be fewer guns at colleges, not more, Savoie said.
Too many young people are still emotional and immature when it comes to firearms, he said, noting that campuses have already beefed up security measures statewide.
“It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to arm a bunch of excitable students,” Savoie said.
Wooten’s House Bill 199 would make it legal to carry licensed concealed handguns on all state colleges, from technical schools to universities.
Not only that, but the bill also would forbid colleges from enacting policies to limit the rights of gun owners from carrying concealed handguns on campuses.
FOR. THE. LOVE. OF. GOD. I mean, really. Is there really anybody with half a brain who thinks that it would be a good thing to have a bunch of college kids packing heat?
Really?
Obviously, not all college kids are the same, and not all are excitable doofuses. On the other hand, if we can't always trust students to do something as simple as behave at football games -- or not drink themselves into oblivion long before their 21st birthdays -- isn't it pretty safe to assume it's probably not a good idea to arm a bunch of kids who still await maturation of the risk-aversion part of their brains?
College bars have double-drunk Tuesdays for a reason, people. It's called "getting rich."
Can't wait until all the boys from Kappa Tappa Kegga -- armed to the teeth, because it's the "cool" thing to be -- stream out of Friday-afternoon classes and into a Friday-night alcoholic haze. Maybe if Rep. Wooten is lucky, one of them will accidentally shoot and kill America's Next Campus Shooter.
Or maybe they'll just kill some poor Phi Beta Kappa as they show off their chrome-plated manhood while trying to impress some girl.
Oh, and while I'm thinking of it: Wooten thinks pistol-packing collegians would be a "deterrent" to the next Seung-Hui Cho.
“We’ve got a problem,” Wooten said in The Advocate story, “and maybe it’ll be a deterrent if one of these disturbed persons or whackos thinks, ‘If I go in shooting, they may shoot back.’”
Uhhhhhh . . . why would that be, when all the recent campus shooters ended their rampages by putting a bullet IN THEIR OWN HEADS? For future reference, the threat of death is no deterrent to suicidal whackos.
The key word being "whacko" . . . or "suicidal" -- take your pick.
Unfortunately, neither is stupidity a deterrent for some people seeking public office . . . or the voters who put them there. It really doesn't take a MENSA candidate to figure out that if you want more armed people on campus to deal with crazed killers, you hire more campus cops.
It's as simple as that. Unless you're paid to make the laws.
The Advocate in Baton Rouge reports that the House Appropriation Committee found room for some extra spending while it was recommending cuts to Louisiana's colleges and universities . . . and cuts to Medicaid, a veterans nursing home and biomedical research.
