Independence Day is this Friday, and we’ll all be off celebrating with family and friends with barbecues, maybe some fireworks (please be careful), and some road trips for the long weekend.
Most of my family and friends don’t call it “Independence Day” any more: we know it as the Fourth of July, just as people in other countries recognize a certain date for their independence or liberation from some oppressive force or nation.
After last week’s Mojo Mouth described a fatal shooting on Frenchmen—within view of my window, had I been in the office at 1 a.m.—another horrific shooting took place on Sunday. The incident has been all over the local and nation news. There were nine people on Bourbon Street who were injured and one person has died during a random shooting between two knuckleheads who figured they would settle up whatever issues they had with each other by pulling their guns, shooting at each other, and then randomly shooting into the Bourbon crowd. The perps haven’t yet been identified, but the NOPD say the search is “going well” (whatever that means) and they’ve identified a 20-year-old white man named Justin Odom as a “person of interest.”
Ten people. At least nine of them were innocent bystanders. Most of them were tourists. The most current victim was a 21-year-old girl from Hammond. What a tragedy.
Of course, the New Orleans tourism spokespeople and the city are downplaying the incident—especially after the news went viral, national and international (a quick perusal when googling “Bourbon Street shooting” brings up Alabama.com, USAToday.com, LATimes.com, CNN, Fox News, Huffington Post and on and on). As well they should, all the while saying they are bound and determined to catch the two shooters who did this. As well they should.
The NOPD Chief of Police, Ronal Serpas, says that the city is going to pump in $300,000 of overtime to pay extra police to “be visible” during the upcoming holiday weekend. This weekend is going to have a crowd of what’s estimated to be about a half million attendees at the city’s annual Essence Fest. Mayor Landrieu has asked for support from the state police to bump up the numbers of law enforcement professionals in the city this weekend, and has also asked the state for additional staffing during the summer (reportedly, Governor Jindal, who apparently cares little about the saftey in New Orleans, is relatively cool about helping the city that is Louisiana’s biggest economic engine on an ongoing basis).
Any time there’s shooting in the Quarter, it makes international news. We’ve created a destination that’s famous for its wanton alcohol consumption and anything-goes attitude, and yet we’re surprised when idiots bearing firearms in that destination decide pop someone when they are pissed off, get some alcohol in them, and then they actually hurt, maim and even kill people. All because it’s their second amendment right to carry a gun when and wherever they want to, blah blah blah.)
I mentioned “Independence” at the beginning of this blog. Independent means free, right? How free are we mentally when we have to fear being shot, walking down a street when we’re relaxing and trying to party—not to mention when we’re walking down the street minding our own business? My stepdaughter, who grew up in Europe, had the opportunity to live in New Orleans, but chose not to because she felt that a lot of the liberty she felt in Europe–freedom of worry from crime and guns, not having to constantly be on the lookout for situations that could be dangerous–was not available here. Says a lot about the freedoms that we prize in this country.
Of course we need more police; but frankly, police are not going to have a major impact on morons carrying a deadly weapon who don’t have a clue (or don’t care) about the impact of firing a gun. If someone has a gun–even someone who doesn’t intend to use it, or who has it for “protection”–there’s more of an opportunity for a criminal to take his gun to use for his own purposes than there is for the guy who owns the gun to use it.
There’s something not right and not sensible about the false sense of security that carrying a gun purports to provide—even a law-abiding citizen. The public good is certainly not served by allowing guns in the French Quarter, or on Frenchmen Street either. The public good should trump the “right” to carry a gun in these locations.
Personally, I think we’d all be a lot better off prohibiting guns in either location. I’ve almost arrived at the conclusion that it would be better to erect checkpoints at both areas and run people through metal detectors. We have to do it at airports to protect the public to make sure we’re not attacked by terrorists. The people carrying guns in an entertainment district are potential terrorists. We need to stop them, too. Yes, it’s annoying. But in a gun cuture such as what’s developed in this country, we need to be prepared to do this. Soon we’ll need metal detectors in malls. We already use them in school. This is what the attitude regarding the ownership and use of guns in this country has come to. Combine this attitude with glorification of violence, lack of parental oversight, and you have a pot that’s going to boil over.
If we won’t take a stand on stopping the proliferation of guns and gun-nuts in this country, then we should not make a big deal out of a shooting on Bourbon or on Frenchmen Street. You can’t have it both ways. It’s gonna continue to happen and it’s going to get a lot worse, not just here, but everywhere.
I know I’m whistling in the wind here, but it seems to me that if the city ever really took a stand on keeping firearms out of entertainment districts (it’s way too much to ask to ban guns in the city), our tourism prospects would be much improved in the long run. I’ll choose sex over violence any old time: Show Your Tits: YEAH…but leave your guns at home—or you just can’t get in to join the party.
