The more I do this work the more I realize that the antis ain’t got game. Not if you’re judging their arguments based on facts, logic and/or reason. Check out this quote from Niles, Illinois Trustee Rosemary Palicki via chicagotribune.com. (Rose was the only village official to vote no on Tuesday for a special use permit to allow firearms sales, firearms safety training and an indoor firing range at 6143 Howard St. – no more than a mile from five schools!) “The perception of danger on the part of these parents and community leaders remains very strong, and therefore, the very real issues of public health and welfare remain unresolved.” Not danger. The perception of danger. Oy. On the pro-gun side . . .
Trustee John Jekot, who voted for the special use permit, said he could not find studies that showed that the location of a gun shop to a school increased the amount of gun violence against students.
Studies? As in facts? Wow. What a difference fifteen miles makes! Clearly, the mindless gun control fervor that’s gripped the Windy City for donkey’s years hasn’t overwhelmed Niles’ 30k residents, a town whose motto boasts it’s “the #1 place in the U.S. to raise kids.”
That said, the new range wasn’t a done deal. The town isn’t exactly what you’d call gun control virus-free, with all the nonsense that contagion carries with it.
Both the superintendent of Niles Township High School District 219 and the executive director of New Hope Academy spoke against the gun shop and firing range.
Nanciann Gatta, superintendent of District 219, said “the location is too close to our schools.” She continued, saying, “It’s not a case about the right to bear arms. It’s a question of where this range would be.”
In England, they call people who use that sort of non-objection objection NIMBIES (Not In My Back Yard). On this website we simply distill their argument to its basics: look at this baby! Indeed. We trust that you guard your children well, Niles. And soon, you can do so even more effectively. Nice work.
Are we ever going to see a “Look at this baby!” t-shirt up in the pro shop?
+1 I’d buy it.
I think their arguments boil down to….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxhwM06lLUs
Very well said John Galt. Sadly it’s the time we live in, primary sources, facts, critical thought and analysis cogently presented and defended are seemingly passe. Now nothing trumps feelings or worse yet the hypothetical feelings or worst of all hypothetical offense somebody, albeit heretofore unknown, just might experience if they were to potentially come in contact with…It’s become nauseating, to all evidence civilization bows and is in apparent thrall to an ethos of middle school girls. It doesn’t matter how utterly preposterous the argument is, just as long as it in some way high lights their ‘really good’ intentions that have never yet translated into anything positive. The hard and hard won values that propelled us to this place in prosperity and history are routinely, yea competitively denigrated while all around deviance is elevated. Sometimes tomorrow feels like a long time coming.
Cesare, you’ve conveyed it far better than I could hope for.
You captured the essence of the blurt of thought I had when I posted the “Feelings” video.
An articulate wordsmith you are.
Kudos.
I keep seeing again and again these over-the-top hysterical people who lose all touch with reality at the thought much less sight of a firearm.
This is why we need open carry demonstrations — complete with handguns in holsters and long guns in scabbards (on carriers’ backs) to desensitize these hysterical people. Otherwise we will be in this giant pi$$ing match forever.
And to think many of the high schools in and around Niles used to have shooting clubs and ranges in their basements.
Thank you Niles. Can’t wait to check it out.
I live in a nearby suburb and am very excited for this range to open. It will significantly cut down on my Saturday morning range commute.
Umm, what is so “dangerous” about having a gun store a mile away from a school? It’s not like the little kiddies will be shopping there, or for that matter will be allowed to shoot without adult supervision.
There is a filter in their minds that turns “gun store” into “arms dealer,” and “shooting range” into “turkey shoot.” It’s the same one that turns “pop tart” into “assault weapon” and “NRA” into “al qaeda.”
Correct. Another term for it is “baseless hysteria.”
Exactly! The range we are building right outside of our town is less than 1 mile from the Elementary-Middle
Schools. And no one cares!!!
Proximity as an argument = fail.
How many crackheads, kiddie porn jackers, wife beaters, coke snorters and dog kickers live within a mile of a school? How many do your kids walk past any day of the week? How many prepare and serve your kids food? How many teach at your kids school?
Insanity would be a lot more fun if these lunatics followed through and applied their ludicrous paranoia equally. They’d lock themselves in a closet and cry until death came to end their state of perpetual terror.
Your point is misplaced. They have laws against that. Therefore it does not exist.
For the Children’s sake, Just move the schools!!!!
Its not like they worry about taking our money…
“Both the superintendent of Niles Township High School District 219 and the executive director of New Hope Academy spoke against the gun shop and firing range.
Nanciann Gatta, superintendent of District 219, said “the location is too close to our schools.” She continued, saying, “It’s not a case about the right to bear arms. It’s a question of where this range would be.”
Just another in a long line of reasons to blow up and get rid of the publik educshun system. These folks are supposed to teach young mind to think critically when they cannot do it themselves. Sheesh. It’s a wonder we haven’t de-evolved to Zimbabwe yet.
Who didn’t see this coming? Im surprised it took this long.
I always thought it was funny coming out of Guns and Gun parts in West Springfield, MA and across the street in two directions are schools. Guess what happened to the kids in the Schools being so close to the gun store? Not a damn thing!
My primary gun shop, ProForce, is about 1 mile from my daughters former middles school. The Orange County Indoor Shooting Range is very near ProForce. I don’t recall any shootings near the schools in Brea. Even if there were any, it wouldn’t justify shutting down the gun shops and ranges.
That would be like closing a car dealership one mile from a school because there was a DUI or reckless driver someplace. Ridiculous. One of the things that bothers me the most about antis is that they are perfectly happy to punish me for the crimes of someone else.
In most cities, small and big, are there any points on the map that are not within a mile from a school? I think they know that, I think this is part of a bigger hidden agenda, and I think their actions are as evil as it gets.
I agree, and I would go farther. The dispersion of schools in cities demonstrates an effective city government. Schools SHOULD be distributed around the city in order to provide quick and easy access from anywhere in the city, to your kids’ schools, as opposed to having all schools together. You might want them kinda thin around fertilizer plants or nuclear power plants, possibly railroads and other noisy facilities, but otherwise evenly distributed. These fruitbars are just trying to make a case for outlawing all gun ranges/stores, probably already know there is zero risk involved.
But what if the guns get loose? They kill people you know!
Your Google-fu failed you this time, Richard – check http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2014-06-04/news/ct-niles-conceal-carry-school-tl-20140604_1_gun-ranges-business-district-concealed-weapons
This is the same person that was against a “firearms safety and gun training school”, which would use *NO REAL GUNS* to set up shop on the “business corridor”. Using again, of course, the old “I’m all for the 2nd amendment – BUT” approach. And quoting from the article:
Trustee Rosemary Palicki, who cast the lone vote against the school, said that she would prefer it was located in the village’s industrial area instead of its main business corridor, and expressed concerns about signage.
“I’m a policeman’s daughter. I’m not against gun safety,” Palicki said. “I think it would fit very nicely into the industrial area instead of the main corridor.”
So Ms Palicki is AOK with NON-GUNS as long as they’re very far away – even if the school would have a positive effect on the community, by probably limiting the number of negligent discharges in or about the community . . .
I’m a public school teacher at a school that has an awesome gun store within a quarter-mile. OMG!! In fact, at least twice I have purchased a gun on my way home from teaching. OMG!! On those occasions I walked in, got background-checked, and purchased the gun within 20 minutes. OMG!!
Statistically you are three times more likely to get struck by lightning than you are to get shot in a school yard shooting.
They had the same nonsense going on around Loveland Ohio ( a suburb of Cincy ) with a gun store and indoor range presenting a threat to a school which was over a quarter mile away.
There’s already gun shops and ranges in Cook County,Illinois. I don’t get this particular hysteria. I’ve been through Niles many times & never got that vibe. Come to think of it the last time I drove through Niles I was headed to Cabelas pick up a gun in Hoffman Estates. Anyone opening a gun shop in Chicago would be a glutton for abuse.
Within a mile of 5 schools?
Something tells me they didn’t have a place to put it that would cause less controversy. Gun stores are no exception to the general rules of business (put it in an easy to access place where it is easily visible to customers) and I think telling them to move to a place 5 miles in the woods would be unfair from any perspective…
Please stop the juvenile “OMG” subject lines. I understand the intent, but it’s super annoying to see every single day.
I tend to avoid those articles on reflex. So it is rare I get in one like this. I hate text speak
Its meant as derision and ridicule. Indicating a lack of mature decision making from people who should be capable of much more.
I’m aware, which is why I stated that I understand the intent, but it’s nearly as annoying as the decisions TTAG’s ridiculing.
OMG! He doesn’t like OMG!!!
You had to know it was coming…
“…the antis ain’t got game. Not if you’re judging their arguments based on facts, logic and/or reason.”
Unfortunately that’s not the game. The game is who can convince more average voters about something. Logic… doesn’t play a huge part.
Conjecture, of course, but if a hardware store were to occupy the same spot, no one would object. Despite the fact that HW stores carry fertilizer, chain saws, axes, hammers of ALL sorts, various dangerous chemicals, poisons, chains, ropes, and machetes, all of which have been used to kill far more people than firearms, and they will happily sell these items to anyone, no permit needed and no age restrictions for the most part.
And in Florida an unnamed firearms manufacturer quietly builds “assault weapons” (Gasp!) in a residential neighborhood across the street from the school bus stop! To be fair outside of the city permitting office very few people know the location.
bleh. Out here, we’re getting town councils and “citizen groups” to lobby for the closure of both outdoor and indoor ranges because they are now “near” newly built homes. (Within 5 miles, like this school thing.)
The range I go to (1hr away) is slated to be closed down, and the next closest one is 2hrs away.
It’s been open since the 60s, and there’s been only one documented death related to the range — and that was a guy who tipped over due to a heart attack on a hot day in the 1980s.
Yet the message and attitude seems to be “if we don’t do something NOW, there will be carnage, blood in the streets! Children in the streets! Child-blood-carnage in the streets!”
(Is anyone else as tired of the term ‘on the streets’ or ‘off the streets’ as I am? I live on a mountain dirt road. We really don’t have a ‘streets’ violence problem.)
Seriously NOT to diminish Newtown (since I know the antis are watching) (which was an act of a deranged madman) – but ever since, we’re dealing with this “gun-geist” attitude doubled up even more than it was before.
What’s a bit scary to me is how the demographics shifted. Before Newton – I was an anti. The argument got so loud that I told myself “wait a minute, let me look into this” instead of just believing what I heard. However, conversely, some of my “gun guy” friends actually have become more anti since Newtown. It’s like we traded places. It divided the thought-driven from the emotional, I believe.
Right now if you simply invoke “CHILD!” or “SCHOOL!”, and juxtapose it with “GUN!” there’s an emotional subroutine that runs in a lot of people. No thought required, and none intended. So for a lot of nodding heads, that’s all “Rose” has to do. Say that “Gun should not be near school!” (bang rocks together) – and a chorus of affirmative grunts would issue forth from the audience.
Big damn deal,so a gun shop is close to a school. My LGS is maybe a 1\4 mile from the front gate of a high school. No one gives two shits about that. Hell they even passed a vote for the resource officers to have ARs his office.