On Thursday, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels signed a law permitting Indiana residents to bring their beloved firearms to work.   The law which takes effect July 1, showed broad support in clearing the Indiana House 74-20 and the state Senate 41-9.  I am glad to finally see second amendment rights being extended to those Hoosiers who choose to work for a living.  However, this legislation is still flawed.

Unfortunately, some employers employers including schools, child care centers, domestic violence shelters, and some utilities and chemical plants are exempted from having to give their workers second amendment rights on the job.   Daniels himself suggested lawmakers in the future might want to clean up some “ambiguities” in the law that prohibit 100% of all employees from having their rights.

This still doesn’t go far enough.  Half of the fun of having a gun is keeping it out of sight, but close at hand.   The current law will require employees to keep their guns locked in their cars.   That seems to defeat the whole point of having a gun.   If you want to clean your firearm on your lunch break you actually have to  go out to the parking lot like a smoker or something.

There are all sorts of benefits to employers who do allowed concealed carry.  The increased productivity of workers who don’t make eye contact at the water cooler could save a medium sized company thousands of dollars per year.   Meanwhile, customer service speed will increase when complainers know that the person they’re talking to knows where they live and is packing.  When our founding fathers wrote the Constitution they recognized how important the right to sneak a gun into the office is to a healthy functioning democracy.  Let’s honor them by giving these rights to all employees.

I was disheartened to hear that Colorado State University has announced plans to outlaw concealed carry on their campus.   I believe that the blame for this boneheaded decision can clearly be put on nerds.   When our founding fathers added the second amendment to the Constitution they clearly meant concealed weapons as well.  Some of our nation’s universities had been around for over 100 years.   Concealed carry became an instant college fad  although at that time, it usually meant carrying a small tree with you and hiding the gun among its branches or a blunderbuss which could be concealed by a large top hat.

Since then, college has been a time in people’s lives when they learn how to drink and shoot responsibly.   I still remember those days as a freshman at college, drinking cheap beer in the park at 2AM and shooting at road signs as we drove home.  I’m still surprised we made it home alive sometimes, but we all learned from the experience and we grew as people for it.   Card games were always time for firearm hi-jinks.   Inevitably one of us would pull out his gun and accuse one of the other players of cheating.   Tailgating before football games was always announced by firing a couple of warning shots in the air.   Even my college professors used to grade on a nicer curve when they didn’t know who was packing.  I didn’t have a lot of money back then, but I loved my snub-nosed .38 like my best girl.

CSU-Fort Collins Police Chief Wendy Rich-Goldsmith a relative newcomer to the campus, supports the ban, but she is a woman.   Fortunately, a hero has stepped forward to save social life on college campus. Larimer County  Sheriff James Alderden, outraged by the ban, said  he will undermine it in the interest of student safety. “I have told the CSU police chief I will not support this in any way,” Sheriff Alderden explained “If anyone with one of my permits gets arrested for concealed carry at CSU, I will refuse to book that person into my jail. Furthermore, I will show up at court and testify on that person’s behalf, and I will do whatever I can to discourage a conviction. I will not be a party to this very poor decision.”

There has been a lot of talk lately about the number of people at presidential town halls who have been armed.   I believe that this is a direct result of Presidential cowardice to face his critics when they are armed.   The second amendment grants us all the right to bear arms and the President should not be able to infringe on this.   The vast majority of gun owners are law abiding citizens and it’s only the John Hinkleys, Lee Harvey Oswalds, John Wilkes Booths, and Charles Guiteaus that give gun owners a bad name.   Let’s not paint all gun owners with a broad brush simply because of James Earl Ray, Sirhan Sirhan, Giuseppe Zangara, and Leon Czolgosz.   Gunmen like this were not playing with a full deck.  It’s not like in today’s day and age you have crazy people walking into town halls.

While many of our Presidents have been shot at, only 9 of our Presidents have actually been hit.  That’s barely one every 5 administrations.  The only thing I’d be worried about is that al-qaeda or Hamas militants could also enter town halls armed to the teeth.  However, if outlawing guns for them means outlawing guns for the rest of us then I support their rights.  I’d like to see if we could do something if we see somebody who is obviously supporting jihad.  Perhaps, we could outlaw people wearing green and black and people of middle eastern ancestry from being at town halls.   I have nothing against middle easterners, it just seems like it could be tempting fate.

The country should not let Obama’s personal cowardice prevent us from celebrating our second amendment rights by carrying our guns to town hall meetings.   For one thing, you never know how close you’re going to be allowed to get, and a telescopic scope gives you a decent view of the stage in these enormous meetings.   The right to bear arms is sacred to Americans.   You know who else tried to outlaw them?  Hitler.

Deers better not start anything now that I'm packing.

Imagine you take your family out for a lovely picnic lunch in your local national park.  You’re hiking down the path looking for a nice shady place to eat your lunch–dum de dum–you’re minding your own business when all of a sudden WHAM!!  Out comes a ravenous mountain lion.  You’re able to run away, but what about your poor wife and children. Chances are, they’ve become that mountain lion’s lunch.

The above scenario used to happen all the time, but now thanks to President Bush, if you go into the national parks you can do so with the confidence that you can pack heat.  If that mountain lion pops out now, you simply reach for your trusty handgun and your children are not only safe, but they also have a wonderful story to tell their friends.  Not only that, but since we can carry concealed weapons in state parks, wild animals will have absolutely no idea who is armed.  Sure, some bear may be tempted by your picnic basket, but he’ll leave you alone because he’ll know that he could wind up as a rug if he doesn’t watch his step.

The last days of an administration is a time of great statesmanship when Presidents can count on building their legacy instead of getting reelected. Already Bush has helped pardon several people who were wrongly imprisoned because either they or their families were large Republican donors and protected American businesses from excessive environmental laws. It is no wonder that Bush’s approval rating has been threatening to break into double digits.