Anyone with a gun can lose it, so let's regulate texting.

About two years ago I was assigned to take an all-day class at Roy High School on how to be a cop responding to a hostage situation in which guns were involved.

Standard-Examiner photo by Kera Williams

I was great fun and the Standard-Examiner even shot a video of me doing my Clint Eastwood "Dirty Harry" impression. I didn't actually shoot my gun in the situation, but that was fine with me too.

You can read the whole story and see me armed to the teeth here (click).


So?

Well, just yesterday in Florida a retired cop, 70, armed with a .38 cal pistol, shot a guy in a movie theater armed with a box of popcorn. They were arguing over the guy with the popcorn texting. The guy with the gun felt the situation was one in which he simply could not get up and move away from the texter, he was RIGHT, by god, and that was all there was to it.

Neither did the other guy, they stood and fought, words and popcorn flew, and in the heat of the moment the retired cop shot the guy with the popcorn.

Amazingly, the New  York Times seems to think (click) that this means we, as a nation, need to discuss texting in movie theaters. My comment on that ridiculous concept made number 4 on the reader picks.

No, I'm not going to pitch gun control here. Why bother? It's never going to happen.

My Best Dirty Harry look
S-E  photo by Kera Williams

Instead I'm going to relate one item from that class I took in 2012, the one involving guns, remember?

Before the class started, I wrote:  As Roy Detective Adam Madsen, the course instructor, put it, "We are a nation of superheroes. You never see Arnold Schwarzenegger lose or miss. We are raised to believe that we can go in and solve any problem."

Madsen then disarmed everyone in the room. OK, he didn't frisk us, but he said "Does anyone here have a gun?" and when Roy City Councilman Mike Stokes said "Yes," Madsen told him to go lock it up in his car, outside.

Why? Because, as Madsen said, during a tense situation anyone -- ANYONE -- can lose their head just a little, grab a gun and use it.

Anyone. Even Stokes, who has taken concealed carry classes, has a permit, the works.

When your blood is up, your eyes hazed with adrenalin, you don't think clearly. Throw a box of $5 popcorn? Sure.

Pull your gun and fire it?  Sure.

Anyone. And cops know this. Plenty of them have been involved in real shootings in recent years (click) including Madsen. They know the tunnel vision, the fear, the tension. Training is supposed to steer them down the narrow path of legal correctness, but it is debatable how well that works.

Which is why they don't allow real guns during gun training classes like the one I went to. Someone could get shot.

I suppose one could say this is a good argument for controls, or regulations, but as I said, that ain't going to happen. If someone in the gun industry commits the unpardonable sin of even thinking that maybe, perhaps, someday, someone should consider talking about some sort of regulation, however tiny, they're immediately banished (click.)

So why bother? Another day, another unfortunate incident involving a handgun.

What we REALLY need to do, yes, is crack down on that texting in movie theaters.