Friday, June 12, 2009

Irate Dad Takes Gun to School

CNN reports on the story of a parent who, after becoming angry over a school-issued memo about the swine flu, confronted a school administrator with a gun.

Police and school officials identified the suspect as Peter Cocker, 37, parent of a recently ill student at South Orangetown Middle School in Rockland County.

The man barged into the office of South Orangetown School District Superintendent Ken Mitchell brandishing a gun.

The man locked the office door and confronted Mitchell about his latest H1N1 memo, released a day earlier.

Fortunately no injuries resulted, thanks to the heads-up intervention of a New York school district superintendent who wrestled Cocker to the ground.

Peter Cocker was arraigned on charges of burglary, kidnapping, coercion and criminal use of a weapon.

I wish they would tell us more about the gun, you know that inanimate object that is more-or-less like any other tool. In New York State there are very strict gun laws. I wonder if Mr. Cocker, who is a former police officer with a clean record, owned the gun legally. I wonder if he's yet another example of a lawful gun owner who suddenly becomes a criminal. This is also called "gun flow" just as surely as the movement of weapons from States like Virginia and Arizona up to New York. The problem with this type of "gun flow" is it's extremely difficult to prevent.

My pro-gun friends seem to continually misunderstand me. I accept the fact that the great majority of gun owners are responsible and I'm willing to presume the ones who comment here are members of that group. But I believe there is a percentage of their group that is like Mr. Peter Cocker. Some of them have been breaking the rules all along and only come to our attention when they get caught. Others are really good guys who, at a certain point, go bad.

The point is, it's from this small percentage that we have most of the trouble. Why is that considered slander against all gun owners? It's not.

The question is how big is this problem group. Some people say it's tiny, practically insignificant. I say it's 10 or 20 or 30%. This is what we're haggling about, among other things.

What's your opinion? Is Mr. Cocker a true anomaly or does he represent a fairly significant percentage of gun owners? What do you think would have happened if the school superintendent had been armed? I know the answer: we'd have one dead Cocker and another legitimate DGU.

Please leave a comment.

9 comments:

  1. The guys name is Peter Cocker and you resisted making a small penis joke?

    There's hope for you yet.

    Here's my observation...

    "What's your opinion? Is Mr. Cocker a true anomaly or does he represent a fairly significant percentage of gun owners? "

    You are soliciting opinions for a mathematical percentage. You aren't asking for evidence, you aren't asking for proof, you are asking for our feelings of what the percentage is.

    I gots a problem with that.

    Imagine you're back in school taking a math quiz and the question reads...

    What is the derivative of 3x^2 + x - 3. Show your work.

    And your response is...

    My opinion is that the answer is 7.
    Yes, yes, I feel that is correct.

    What do you "feel" your score would be out of a hundred. Ya know, a percentage?

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  2. "a former police officer"

    Hmmmm.

    "does he represent a fairly significant percentage of gun owners?"

    Why don't we look at the statistics from the FBI on that?

    Oh wait. You dismiss those as fabricated.

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  3. Do you propose we disarm cops, then?

    As for your percentage question, if the lowest number you gave (10%) of America's 80 million gun owners behaved violently (or at least threateningly, in Cocker's case), don't you think those 8 million bad gun owners would cause a hell of a lot more death and destruction in the U.S. than we're seeing?

    Besides, if the number is 90%, why the hell should anyone in the other 10% be made to suffer? Aren't we beyond collective punishment yet?

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  4. "The point is, it's from this small percentage that we have most of the trouble".

    "I say it's 10 or 20 or 30%. "

    And the evidence for this will appear in 3....2....1.....

    Oh wait, nevermind. Forgot where I was for a moment.

    In Chicago 95% of murder offenders have a criminal record. 81% of the victims do.

    I don't expect you to even try to dispute those numbers w/ anything remotely resembling evidence nor do I think you can.

    *singing* "feelings, nothing more than feelings"

    ReplyDelete
  5. It's not worth my time to comment on a blog where my comments may be deleted for arbitrary reasons.

    I will post a link to my blog where the issue can be discussed freely.
    http://weerdbeard.livejournal.com/516977.html

    ReplyDelete
  6. 45 Superman asks, "Besides, if the number is 90%, why the hell should anyone in the other 10% be made to suffer? Aren't we beyond collective punishment yet?"

    You could call it collective punishment or you could call it living in a society of your fellows and submitting to rules which help that society function. The way it's going is certainly not working and it's not because there are too many gun laws, as some say. The laws we have are impossible to enforce and/or so different from state to state as to render them virtually ineffective.

    Accepting sensible gun laws that apply to everyone would not constitute collective punishment, in my opinion.

    ReplyDelete
  7. "Accepting sensible gun laws that apply to everyone would not constitute collective punishment, in my opinion."

    Do you really mean everyone?

    Cops? The body guards of our political buffoons? The FBI? The military? The Secret Service?

    Again, do you really mean everyone?

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  8. Accepting sensible gun laws that apply to everyone would not constitute collective punishment, in my opinion.

    Sure, and mass beatings probably don't constitute mass punishment in the opinion of masochists, but for those of us who know that armed defense of one's self and one's liberty is a fundamental human right, infringements upon that right are indeed punishment, and will be resisted--by whatever means necessary.

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  9. This is a bit nit-picky but I feel it necessary to mention.

    If you feel the need to put a "space" in someones' moniker, it should be...

    45super man

    not...

    45 superman.

    He is refering to a certain cartridge, the 45 super, that he has some affinity with, not that he thinks that he is superman with a .45

    The first step in honest debate is to learn who the opposing side is and it is a sign of respect to refer to them as they refer to themselves..

    ReplyDelete