Chardon, Ohio & the Second Amendment

Chardon High School isn’t far from where I went to high school, and I’m also the father of a 12-year-old boy, so what’s happening in Chardon now is of intense interest to me. I’m heading there to to try to find out what happened and how it happened and — to the extent one human is allowed to speculate — why it happened.

Whenever shit like this goes down — what CNN has now offically labeled a ‘rampage’ — gun control becomes a focal point of controversy. I believe in the 2nd Amendment, strongly. I’ve owned a firearm for many years. But I’m hardly an absolutist when it comes to the right to bear arms, and I truly don’t understand why any sane citizen would want handguns and long guns to be treated alike. I was visiting a pal in Indiana a couple of weeks back, and we went to a gun-shop range for a half-hour, and I was reminded again of the obvious truth: The handgun is an excellent tool for killing a human being. Nothing more, nothing less.

I don’t know where TJ Lane, the shooter in Chardon, got his .22 semi-automatic pistol. But I do know how easy it is to buy a handgun. I also know how easy it is to fire one. And I know that Ohio’s Governor signed a law last year making it legal to carry concealed firearms into bars, malls, and arenas. Call me an elitist asshole, but anybody in Ohio who feels safer as a result is too fucking stupid to ever be trusted with any kind of gun.