The Liberal Gun Club Forum

A professor has second thoughts about writing a recommendation for a student gun enthusiast

http://chronicle.com/article/Guns-Panca ... ity/236154

For a long time, Sarah didn’t follow up about the recommendation. Recently, however — with at least 14 more people dead and 17 more injured in college campus shootings — she emailed me again, updating me on her plans and repeating her request.
I lay all of this out here now because I don’t know what to do about the recommendation.

It’s so complicated. On one side are all of my ideas about supporting students, honoring their individuality and their journeys, creating a safe space for them (and myself), not taking things out of context, not overinterpreting. On the other side are my memories of growing up in a situation where guns, people, and bullets had to be rigorously kept apart, lest they find each other in a tragic moment of instability.

On the upside, the comments section is laying the smackdown on her...

I teach in the California Community College system, and I'm up here in the State of Jefferson in a very gun friendly area of California. But I teach in the Humanities, so many of my colleagues somehow are frightened of gunz. That teacher in the CoHE sounds like some of my colleagues, unable to separate personal likes and dislikes from doing one's duty as a teacher. Yeah, some of the comments were pretty good. Takes all kinds.

With the title, I expected to see the bunny with the pancake on its head. But it wasn't that kind of an article.

CDFingers

I think the comments were much better than the article. Worth a read.

senorgrand wrote:I think the comments were much better than the article. Worth a read.

Those are generally some very intelligent and well thought out comments, a far cry from the shitstorm comment sections usually turn into.

...she had fired an AK-47.

Probably not.

I gave the usual "very good, moving on" response but was thinking, "Whoa, that’s disturbing."

Therein lies the problem, in addition to the potential of her father to have committed suicide and the fixation on school/mass shootings. Thus the author equates range time with both suicide and murder. No way to reason with such an emotionally-driven simp.

It seems to me no person who has truly experienced the full impact of their own emotions would ever go near a gun.

Projection as well.

Sarah shared that the most notable experience of her winter break was a visit to a gun range where she had fired an AK-47. I gave the usual "very good, moving on" response but was thinking, "Whoa, that’s disturbing."

Why is it disturbing somebody went to a gun range? It sounds like the student had a lot of fun and found a new hobby.

She seems to be a good kid, Sarah. And I don’t know what she really thinks of gun advocacy and political failures that have cost us all these lives and our sense of safety as educators. I don’t know what she does on the weekends. I also don’t know if she understands emotions, or what real rage feels like. It seems to me no person who has truly experienced the full impact of their own emotions would ever go near a gun.

I wonder if the teacher considers the outside lives of all of her students who ask for recommendations, does she question if they're problem drinkers who drive intoxicated, does she question whether they're a closet pedophile? And really it sounds like the teacher doesn't have a good understanding or grasp of their own emotions, somebody who's worrying about 'real rage' or the 'full impact of their own emotions' must have a tenuous grasp on their self control.

Granted, this is really where a lot of the gun control proponents are coming from. They know they have anger problems, so they can't understand that there are people out there who can control themselves and not lash out.