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Tuesday, December 02, 2008
Another Failure of "Abstinence-
Only" Education Programs
Only" Education Programs
Plaxico
is just the latest victim of do-gooder dim-wittedness.
MORE UNNECESSARY JOCK DISGRACE It's long past time for the NFL to give up trying to convince professional football players not to carry concealed handguns into after-hours nightclubs and strip joints. How long have we heard about the League's "pro-active" efforts to prevent gun crimes by bringing in police, lawyers, and government officials to lecture players about the need to leave guns alone? Right. Like we all don't know that's just not going to happen. Professional athletes can no more stay away from guns than they can stay away from exoticars, groupies, hookers, outlandishly idiotic clothes, and recreational drugs. Only a fool would think otherwise.
What's urgently needed now is more realistic education programs that teach safe illegal gun ownership. Every pro athlete must be given hands-on training in fitting a silencer to his weapon so that those inevitable late-night drunken shootings won't wake the whole neighborhood and bring the cops in bunches. There must be courses in the most effective, high-tech ways to conceal handguns in Lamborghinis and on their persons, because no run-of-the-mill DUI stop should ever end with a slam-dunk five-year prison sentence for just doing what comes naturally.
After that, they and their entourages should also receive the most up-to-date possible counseling in methods of arrest-control. There's no point in pretending that accidents won't happen. They will. That's why all player posses must be as highly trained as SWAT teams in their tactical reactions to gun emergencies. They must learn how to dispose of discharged weapons clandestinely, bribe club-owners and spectators subtly, baffle law enforcement personnel with the kind of bullshit they just can't see through, and disappear the occasional bystander casualties without a trace. The players themselves must know when to shut up, sit still, and speed-dial an attorney, no matter how much PCP they've consumed. There's no excuse for the kind of clumsy bungling of pedestrian gun incidents we have seen time and time again on ESPN. It has to stop.
The current abstinence-only approach to gun education in the NFL, NBA, and Major League Baseball has resulted in a tragic victimization of some of the nation's most beloved and vulnerable stupid people. The problem will only get worse until we start remembering that our first duty is to the victims of boneheaded policy, not to the maintenance of a ridiculously impossible standard of behavior none of us would observe either if we had a 90 IQ, no father, and a $30 million annual income.
The most unbelievable aspect of this whole crisis is that I'm the first one to have started talking sense about what must be done. What are all you people smoking, anyway? Pollyanna crack? Have you given any thought whatsoever to the price we're all going to pay emotionally when Tony Kornheiser starts bleating about Plaxico Burress and doesn't stop for week after week after week (after week) of Monday Night Football? Have you? Well, use your head. And get behind my proposals before another MNF season gets underway.
Thank you.
