WHICH IS WORSE FOR KIDS, SEEING A MAN BEAT TO DEATH OR BEING AROUND A GUN?

By Bob Walsh

PACOVILLA Corrections blog
September 11, 2014

At about 7:45 p.m. on Monday at Linwood park in South Wichita, Kansas a group of men approached a 37-year old junior football league coach. One of the men was unhappy about his kid’s lack of playing time. He said so, then pulled up his shirt, exposing a pistol in his waistband. At that time five or six of his buddies, at least one armed with brass knuckles jumped in and started beating the shit out of the coach.

The coach’s wife, who also had some involvement with operating the team, pulled a gun and fired a warning shot. (Not smart, but it worked.) The assailants backed off and the coach got his own weapon from the car. The assailants fled at that time.

The cops showed up and confiscated both guns. Both the coach and his wife have been fired from their coaching duties. No arrests have been made.

Jeremy Burris, director of the Tigers football program, stated, “He (the coach) has been a great role model for the kids but you can’t take weapons out around children.”

I guess it is OK to beat someone to death in front of children, but hauling out a weapon to stop a felonious assault is somehow morally reprehensible.

By the way, the Wichita Tigers football program has a web site. Jeremy Burris is listed on it. I sent him an email letting him know what I thought of his thought processes. Feel free to jump in if you like.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is one of those rare moments when I disagree with Bob.

Here we have one of those ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ situations. I think Bob oversimplified the problem with the ‘being around a gun’ part of the title. I do not believe Jeremy Burris fired the coach and his wife because he does not want kids to be around guns. I believe he feared that, in this case, had a gunfight broken out, some of the kids could have been wounded or killed.

I can understand why the coach and his wife went for their gats. There is no telling how badly he would have been injured had the thugs not been frightened off by the actions of the coach and his wife. But if they did not have concealed carry licenses, they will not get their guns back and will be lucky if charges are not filed against them.

As for kids’ organized sports, with parental passions riding so high, it would seem that a ban on guns at team workouts and games makes good sense.