The Republican (and NRA) dominated Ohio legislature has a pair of bills that would permit concealed weapons in bars and also permits those with misdemeanor drug offenses to obtain concealed carry permits.
I was in Youngstown, Ohio a few days ago and I’ve got a good idea of what the outcome of these policies will be.
This is an off campus house belonging to the Omega Psi Phi fraternity at Youngstown State University. I had friends who lived in a house like this twenty five years ago - there was always a crowd and I never could figure out how they managed to pass any classes.
Add some alcohol, a couple of high capacity handguns, one in the hands of a fellow with a juvenile criminal record of the type Governor Kasich would excuse, and this is the scene.
The boots are a girl’s style. I’ll go out on a limb and guess they belong to seventeen year old Shavai Owens, who took a bullet behind her right ear and was last reported to be out of intensive care on Monday. I suppose the paramedics pulled them off her when she was being loaded.
I didn’t notice her blood on the pavement until I was standing in the middle of it, working on a shot of the discarded boots.
This was Jamail E. Johnson. He’d have graduated this spring, but now those plans and dreams are all gone. He was an older student, twenty five, and he’d recently returned from a leadership program offered by the fraternity’s national office. The muddled story that came out indicates that he’d been involved in either asking to leave … or ejecting … the two young men responsible for shooting him along with eleven other people.
The next day there was a memorial table for him in Kilcawley House on campus. You don’t expect to die at twenty five - no life insurance - so his friends have a small donation box set up here to help cover the cost of burying him.
The one seated is Anjalia, the vice president of the sorority associated with Jamail’s fraternity. We talked a bit. This dead young man, he was on his way somewhere. A job, an apartment, a girlfriend who becomes his wife, a house, and then maybe some kids. All gone now, nothing left but cold, hard earth moved by a backhoe, friends and family quickly shuffling back to vehicles to get out of the bitter chill that grips the region.
I feel a bit ghoulish here, but let’s add up the losses.
One promising young man gone. A $50,000 a year income, he’d have worked until 65, that’s two million in economic activity just gone. Maybe he has younger siblings, certainly a mother and father, perhaps both who’ve just outlived their son. He’d have paid an electric bill here, maybe provided a plane ticket there … they’ll never know.
Two less promising young men are now in custody. One is 19, the other 22. This is second degree murder and a bunch of other stuff, maybe to get plead down to manslaughter given the situation. So two boys go into prison and fifteen years and $750,000 later we get back two men with no skills, no work history, and little hope of finding a living wage.
I pray Shavai Owens will walk out of the hospital one day soon with nothing more than some interesting scars and perhaps a fear of loud noises. We all know that’s wishful thinking. I had a tiny brain injury in 2008, an anuerysm that swelled in my speech center without actually bursting. It took months for my speech deficit to clear up and I still catch curious writing mistakes that I would not have made a few years ago.
Taking a bullet to the head is life changing; she’s 17 now, say she lives to 67, and she’s disabled the whole time. That’s another $750,000 gone if she is able to care for herself. If she isn’t I don’t know what the state pays for nursing home stays, but what a shitty thing for a high school senior to face.
If the Ohio legislature gets their way what happened at this house party will be a monthly or quarterly ritual. Young men are going to fight when they drink - boys will be boys, and they don’t grow out of it until their later twenties. Putting handguns into the mix will turn the necessary cuts and bruises of growing up under the influence of testosterone into regular bloodbaths.
The human costs are horrible and it’s surprising that the deficit focused Republican party would sign up for a policy that will certainly result in young people ending up as million dollar taxpayer liabilities due to disability or life without parole prison sentences in their late teens or early twenties.
I’ve owned seven handguns and two assault rifles over the years. My children have inherited small long guns that were mine thirty years ago and their safety skills are such that they’re nearly ready to use them without adult supervision. No one can point at me and shout “Gun grabber!”
This being said ...
Alcohol changes people; it lowers everyone’s inhibitions and it makes some people anger more easily. I would never hunt or target shoot with someone who had been drinking. I think it’s the summit of folly to permit weapons in bars. If Ohio permits this there will be another Jamail or Shavai every time we pick up the newspaper. We can respect our founding fathers’ intent in the second amendment without turning Ohio’s night life into a war zone.
This just in from Twitter - 55% of Arizona residents want stronger gun laws.