Boise State University has turned down a request from veterans for a 21-gun salute on campus Monday to mark Veterans Day, saying it might scare bystanders still spooked by school shootings in other states.Adam, probably correctly, opines that this decision demonstrates reflexive anti-gun attitudes on the part of the university leadership. ("Anti-gun" is an even bigger loser of a political position here in Idaho than in most places.) There's little doubt that BSU leaders as a whole are more liberal than the state in general, but I'm wondering if this might be something even more ominous than "guns are bad".
R.K. Williams, a Vietnam War veteran and longtime Boise State employee who runs the campus veterans services office, said he asked university officials for permission to hold the salute at noon, but they turned him down — twice. The salute would consist of seven shooters firing blanks in three volleys as part of a flag ceremony in the Quad at the center of campus...
...But "having a 21-gun salute in today's environment in the middle of classes didn't seem to be an appropriate way to celebrate" Veterans Day, BSU spokesman Frank Zang said. He cited a student shooting rampage at Virginia Tech University last April that killed 33, including the gunman, and said students and staff might not realize gunshots are part of a ceremony and are safe.
"Gunfire on campus in the middle of the day would not be prudent or appropriate for safety and security," Zang said.
Progressives like to claim that they "support the troops", but are frequently quick to believe any story about atrocities blamed on the U.S. military, or support any measure that comes out that would weaken our military. They always have a good excuse, but the net result of their actions are always opposition to the military as a whole. (It's like liberals in the '70s, where they claimed to oppose the Soviet Union, but everything they supported tended to make the U.S. weaker.) I certainly hope that this isn't a case of BSU leadership demonstrating a general anti-military mindset, but this possibility can't be dismissed out of hand.
On the other hand, the leadership might be, as they're claiming, just prudent; they really might not have the ability to contact students ahead of time to let them know that there'll be a gun salute in 5 days. If so, I'd encourage them to resign and let the state hire people who are more competent and actually can institute a notification system.
Update 2336 08 Nov: The BSU powers-that-be came to their senses even quicker than I thought they would; I figured it'd be until tomorrow that they caved.
