Jump to content

George Hopkins - soothsayer


Recommended Posts

She was probably the tip of the iceberg of parents who hate guns to the extent that they don't want them 'promoted' to children. They think that playing with toy guns may increase the chances that they will play with a real one. They know their kids visit their friends' homes where there may be a real gun where that kid's daddy thinks it's well hidden. And kids get shot and killed in those situations quite often. Personally I think that's more a concern with young children that high school kids, but I would tend to be guided by whatever data exists on that. In any event it's not surprising that people feel that way.

Increasingly, it is not the man in the home that has the sole responsibility for the safety protection of the firarm, it is the female in the single family household that is increasingly responsible for the storage and safety of her firearm around her children. As mentioned, things do change, and one of those changes is the increase in firearm ownership the last 2 decades among the US female population ( with or without children of their own ). Not unsurprisingly, the biggest proponents of more firearm restrictions upon law abiding citizens are people unfamiliar with firearms and its many uses, and its history. It is akin to the biggest proponents of the banning of automobiles for its supposed effect on carbon emissions and the " Green House " effect and whatnot tend not to drive automobiles thremselves, they utilize bicycles. For one more example of this, Major Bloomberg of NYC has banned soda purchases over 16 ounces in NYC... for alleged caloric restrictions. Well thats fine for him, as he reportedly does not drink Cola. But what if his political colleagues banned instead... for just one example... bagels and cream cheese sold at take out stores ? It is afterall, worse nutritionally than Cola, and chock full of more calories. But no, he likes his bagels and cream cheese, so its a lot easier to restrict or ban something that somebody else enjoys or wants instead. As for George Hopkins, he is certainly entitled to decide to eschew toy wooden rifles in his Cadets that have been utilized as competition equipment in this legendary Corps for over 70 years. My guess, he is not one of the current 55 million firearm owners in the US. I think its sort of misplaced concern by GH, and rather silly in my view, but its nothing to get worked up with. Its a free Country, and nobody is forcing him to keep tradition intact either in his Cadets Corps.

Edited by BRASSO
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Interesting to note that when Glee featured color guard members in a performance, they were spinning airblades and not traditional rifles or sabers.

tumblr_mamo1ivGV21qlmw66o1_500.png

I'm pretty sure WGI doesn't count airblades as actual equipment

Link to comment
Share on other sites

However in practice that PC domino effect is exactly what is ocuuring in many school districts nation wide; (see the former links about a NY school now banning recreational actvities during recess, or the link about the new CA new law).

It would have been perfectly in their right to do that, but it would also have been perfectly idiotic, not reasonable, to change their show based on PC placating. If the corps was being harmed (loss of revenue, loss of membership, loss of corporate sponsorship), or if the youth were being harmed (doing something 'illegal' such as exposing youth to actual porn instead of the shows artistic sexual innuendos), then it would have been reasonable to change the show concept.

If Hopkins is making his decisions by placing his finger into the air and reading chat room blogs to find out the PC direction of some people I would highly question his leadership. This includes him making decisions on the the most controversial issue discussed on DCP, the G7. There is nothing wrong with collecting information from multiple sources, with DCP being one of the many sources, however Hopkins should always make decisions based on what is in the best interest of The Cadets, YEA, and all activites under his direction irrespective of placating and irrespective of PC issues.

um...no offense, but you highly question his actions now....what would this do to change that?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Edit: Ok it cut off my later comments again, but they were short. I'll do another post.

However in practice that PC domino effect is exactly what is ocuuring in many school districts nation wide; (see the former links about a NY school now banning recreational actvities during recess, or the link about the new CA new law).

And yet again I reject the inflammatory promotion of silly outlying events (which generally lack critical details showing the events are not as crazy as they seem) without acknowledging the outliers on the other end of the extreme, such as the children who die from gunshot wounds whose parents encouraged them to play with guns.

Of course if you only look at the entertaining extreme, and only at one end of the spectrum, it's not surprising that you would form the opinion that the issue is about a crazy domino effect.

What happens when you promote guns to children? How does that affect actual gun violence among kids? I don't know the answer and neither do you. But those who study those questions will hopefully be influential in this.

However, I very much doubt that any color guard member got shot or shot someone else because they got into guns via color guard.

Where was that poll you mentioned?

Edited by Pete Freedman
Link to comment
Share on other sites


It would have been perfectly in their right to do that, but it would also have been perfectly idiotic, not reasonable, to change their show based on PC placating. If the corps was being harmed (loss of revenue, loss of membership, loss of corporate sponsorship), or if the youth were being harmed (doing something 'illegal' such as exposing youth to actual porn instead of the shows artistic sexual innuendos), then it would have been reasonable to change the show concept.
Unless he was convinced by the PC argument.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

If Hopkins is making his decisions by placing his finger into the air and reading chat room blogs to find out the PC direction of some people I would highly question his leadership. This includes him making decisions on the the most controversial issue discussed on DCP, the G7. There is nothing wrong with collecting information from multiple sources, with DCP being one of the many sources, however Hopkins should always make decisions based on what is in the best interest of The Cadets, YEA, and all activites under his direction irrespective of placating and irrespective of PC issues.

What's the difference between these two things? If all you mean is that they should not limit themselves to PC sources in their decisions, I agree completely.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

... I will leave it at this: Please check the actual data: ... while there is an occasional tragedy, not only with a kid happening upon a real loaded firearm but also with finding and misusing scissors, baseball bats, screw drivers, air nail devices, and other items, those incidents are way, way, way less than a kid getting hurt by merely running and playing tag-your-it in a yard ...

National Child Mortality Data. Note, as per this recent investigation, that what the layman might term "accidental" gun deaths are often officially categorized as "homicide", along with those deaths that more obviously qualify as such.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We may be getting too close to actual political discussions which break the DCP rule, so I will leave it at this: Please check the actual data: a) an overwhelming number, and I mean an overwhelming number of kids who spin wooden rifles, toss sabers, use props in plays and musicals, or even play with squirt guns, dart guns, air foam guns, paint ball guns, etc... never, and I mean never 'play' with real guns; most of them have parents who instruct and teach the difference and most who do not have those types of parents have common sense; and b) while there is an occasional tragedy, not only with a kid happening upon a real loaded firearm but also with finding and misusing scissors, baseball bats, screw drivers, air nail devices, and other items, those incidents are way, way, way less than a kid getting hurt by merely running and playing tag-your-it in a yard (which, by the way, is now banned at that NY school due to idiodic PC).

I would think that getting hit with a spinning rifle once or twice would make you more hesitant to pick up a any weapon, real or not.

Really, though, band kids are "panty-wastes" who, I would think, don't have the personality or aggressiveness that normally exists in most child-gun tragedies. Thank God. The rules at most schools apply to the general population which is much more difficult to control.

I'd, obviously, be much more concerned with the Detroit Lions player (above) who doesn't like is space invaded. Talk about a panty-waste; the only difference between them is that football panty-waste could rip the head off of the band kid panty waste.

If my local school board wanted to ban rifles because of some "violence" reference, I'd attack them with the stats that show band kids having better grades than the general school population...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

National Child Mortality Data. Note, as per this recent investigation, that what the layman might term "accidental" gun deaths are often officially categorized as "homicide", along with those deaths that more obviously qualify as such.

Hey! How did you get those links embedded in your text? I tried that and couldn't make it work? (thought the ability was gone)

That said, I don't get your point. Is it simply that there are far less "accidental" deaths than are typically known by the general public?

I also see that suicide by firearm is .8% and wonder if that's included in the larger 2.8% homicide number, making homicides about the same as respiratory diseases?

And all that said, this study doesn't suggest how many of these are by guard members.

About the same number as is the number of babies killed in plane crashes, I suspect.

I think whatever concerns GH has about spinning rifles are probably overblown in his own mind.

Edited by garfield
Link to comment
Share on other sites

National Child Mortality Data. Note, as per this recent investigation, that what the layman might term "accidental" gun deaths are often officially categorized as "homicide", along with those deaths that more obviously qualify as such.

Hey, I found this same chart and was just processing it. Several things are apparent:

Car crashes kill far more kids than guns. But guns still kill too many.

Those homicides appear to be exclusively gun related. No mention of baseball bats, etc.

The question of whether gun promotion by parents or use of gun toys precipitated these events would be critical, but that's difficult to determine.

Most important, it doesn't tell us how often kids shoot someone (as opposed to getting shot).

So we have a lot of unknowns. I find it unlikely that the use of a rifle by a color guard would indirectly lead to a shooting. But I wouldn't call someone who disagreed an idiot, either. Or a guard that used alternates because of that. If a double digit percentage of guards change to alternates because they think it will happen (without better evidence) then we could say the activity is overreacting. Until then, it isn't.

And of course, there's my reason for not using them: when they're not relevant to the show. But that's a different issue.

Edited by Pete Freedman
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...