Subject: [wagc-ut] Holly Mullen rails on teachers and gun owners

Charles Hardy
Public Policy Director
GOUtah!
801-523-3817
[email protected]

Dear Salt Lake Tribune,

I write to protest Holly Mullen’s latest article. What appears to be a
crass attempt at humor at the expense of those Utah teachers who choose to
legally own guns not only falls flat, but is offensive on a number of
fronts.

I doubt Ms. Mullen would ever write, nor would the SLTribune, print a column
that attempted to get laughs by drawing on negative and false stereotypes of
sexual, religious, or racial minorities. Certainly in this day and age of
political correctness and sensitivity neither Ms. Mullen, nor the SLTribune,
would attempt to get laughs by questioning the sexual orientation of female
gym teachers. But calling into question the masculinity and mental
stability of male home ec teachers is acceptable?

I realize that gun owners are among the last group that may be safely
ridiculed and slandered in the popular press. But when did teachers get
added to the mix?

Through her abject failure to be at all funny, Ms. Mullen reminds us that
humor must contain some portion of truth. In ten years of having a
non-discriminatory permit system to allow all law abiding citizens–without
regard to race, religion, sex, income level, sexual preference, political
connections, etc–to legally carry a concealed weapon, and with over 80,000
such permits now valid, Ms. Mullen cannot point to a SINGLE incident of ANY
teacher misusing a firearm in the manner she suggested in her article. In
fact, taking into account yesterday’s report on a dozen police officers
being decertified by POST, Utahns are MORE likely to be the victim of sexual
misconduct by a teacher OR a sworn police officer than to be the victim of a
teacher with a concealed weapons permit unlawfully using deadly force.

Indeed, as the parent of school-age children whom I entrust to professional
educators every school day, I think Ms. Mullen’s pathetic attempt at writing
is more of an insult to teachers than to gun owners. I am left wondering
whether her article is not a subtle attempt to encourage home schooling so
as to avoid such dangerous creatures as she thinks inhabit the payroll of
Utah’s schools.

I also point out that neither Ms. Mullen NOR the SLTribune, nor even school
districts had ANY concerns about private citizens carrying concealed weapons
back when those who could obtain permits was more or less restricted to a
few hundred politically well connected and/or high income white businessmen.
ONLY, since the discriminatory aspects of the permit process were reformed
and permits have been issued based on the content of character, rather than
the color of skin, size of bank account, or the names in one’s Rolodex have
school districts, newspapers, and columnists found reason to be concerned
with legally concealed weapons. Frankly, the clear and bigoted
implications of that correlation belie attitudes more befitted the hooded
segregationists of less enlightened eras than anyone claiming civility in
21st century America at it appears such concerns have far more to do with
WHO is carrying guns, than with WHERE those guns are carried. .

I request that a retraction and an apology to both teachers AND Utah’s
law-abiding gun owners be printed and that Ms. Mullen be reprimanded for
such hurtful hate speech directed at a couple of Utah’s most responsible
groups of persons. A refresher course on diversity and sensitivity might
also be in order for Ms. Mullen to remind her to respect, rather than mock
and ridicule, differing cultures and points of view, including Utah’s native
conservative, gun loving culture.

Sincerely

Charles Hardy
GOUtah!

The Second Amendment IS Homeland Security !