1993 - Wendy Northcutt has the brilliant idea of putting together a collection of the ineffably stupid. She called it the Darwin Awards, and later published print versions of her collections.
2012 - The NRA calls for arming teachers in schools.
COINCIDENCE? I think NOT!
From the Church of Ineffable Stupidity:
In my misbegotten yute, I came up with multiple scary plans, usually involving ironic, sarcastic, and pre-curmudgeonly humors and femurs, even devious plans. Had I taken any one of the more serious ideas to its logical conclusion, instead of only finishing the half baked and par-boiled plans, death and destruction would certainly have been involved. Quite possibly leading to the end of civilization as we know it.
For example, when I sabotaged my home in advance of my parents coming home from work, each and every one of the tricks backfired, and got me. I ended up wet, filthy, wetter, filthier, and exhausted. I was, as it were, the April Fool. Think of it as crushing a dozen habanero peppers with your fingers, then rubbing your eyes. You cry so much that you could not help laughing. At yourself. When I was away at boy scout camp, and I got others to agree to . . . . Never mind. Those memories are too painful.
Needless to say, part of one's growing experience is falling flat on one's face, learning the right lesson, and picking one's self up by the bootstraps. Or as Sir Douglas Adams wrote,
“A learning experience is one of those things that says, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.”
As I eventually survived my error prone yute-dumb and became a fool-fledged adult-aged curmudgeon, I learned that my actions often caused reactions or other events to occur. I even learned that making a silly or stupid action would result in a silly, stupid, embarrassing, even harmful result. Some people call that the act of maturing.
The good thing is, not everybody does it. Where would we be without the Sarah Palins, the Eric Cantors, the Dick Armeys of the world, and where would our comics and comedians find new raw material?
It is in this vein that we should examine the latest calls to arms, specifically, the one put forth by one Wayne LaPierre.
It is bad enough that TeaBuggers have infested Washington. They are doing their immature damnedest to take this country out of an economic rut, and instead, put it out of its misery, permanently. TeaBuggerers pose a clear and present danger to democracy. Hard to believe as it is, there is one group even more stupid, more dangerous, and more immature than TeaBuggerers: The NRA and its strongest supporters.
Given my dirty tricks experiences, I have found it easiest, safest, and smartest to review my plans from a "worst case scenario." If I dig this mantrap in a forest, and fill the bottom of the pit with sharpened stakes, what on earth could go wrong? If I take this burning cloth, and stuff it into my neighbor's car's gas tank, what might happen? If I light this firecracker and grasp it tightly, what would be the result?
Or, more specifically, If I arm every teacher in grade and high school, and force them to conceal carry, what on earth could go wrong with that idea? Seriously, what?
Let me count the ways:
1. A teacher could lose his, her, its temper, especially with a classroom filled with unruly yutes, intent on make the teach miserable.
2. A teacher could accidentally drop a loaded weapon in a class filled with 3d graders.
3. A teacher could finally learn that his, her, its, spouse was having an affair with Mr. Jones in History/ Social Studies. And lose his, her, its temper.
4. A teacher could have his, her, its, gun stolen by an unruly yute, one with the same level of immaturity that caused my parents so much grief in years past.
5. Or, the likeliest scenario - the gun goes off as intended, but the rank amateur pulling, not squeezing the trigger, is unable to aim it properly. And as all well designed machines, it goes off as intended, just not where expected.
I've had some experience in shooting. In high school NJROTC, I was sent to Quantico, where I learned to shoot M-16s, handguns, even an automatic weapon. Despite intensive training, a very experienced NCO intent on making my life hell, and repeated efforts, my handgun skills were laughable. Since then, I have taken several civilian and police courses on shooting safety and practice. Not only were they far less intense than the Navy version, they taught far less. With a rifle, I can hit someplace on a target. With a pistol, at 20 yards, pissing at it upwind might be more accurate. Under severe stress and fear? Forget it.
I know this is an indirect, long-running, way of getting to the point, but if the points are unclear, let me make them plain.
A. Having a loaded gun in a room filled with yutes is a very silly idea.
B. Arming teachers, who spent years learning about their subject matter, and then, years about how to properly teach that subject matter, who have as much in common with a trained marksman as a melted snowflake has with a Cray supercomputer, is an ineffably stupid idea.
C. Having ill-trained teachers mix it up with an unruly class filled with yutes, WHILE ARMED, is an even more ineffably stupid idea.
D. Anyone seriously promoting the idea of arming school teachers is so immature, so irrational, and quite possibly demented or mentally ill, that nothing they say should ever be taken seriously. Not without a written release, sworn and attested to under oath, by a panel of examining psychiatrists and psychologists who will personally guarantee that the current treatment and proper administration of anti-psychotic medications has cured that particular individual of all of his, her, its ills.
On edit, I just learned that 7 - count em, SEVEN states are seriously considering conceal carry in schools. Who ever thought that gerrymandering based on Ineffable Stupidity would ever become so widespread?