Bogus Gold

Nick "Your Schools Are Burning!" Coleman, turns his excitable mind and simile-laden prose to a serious issue today: his inability to write a coherent column.

Oh, also he is apparently against people being shot. I presume there's some lobby in favor of this he wants us to oppose, but that first point seems to get in his way of pointing out whom this might be and how we ought to go about it. There's some blather in there about Glocks and gun sales, but also Minnesota shootings which may have nothing to do with either Glocks or legally obtained firearms; and there's a whole lot about an unintentionally funny demonstration at the state capitol. Oh heck, let's just take a lookie...

I went to a die-in at the State Capitol on Wednesday, marking the anniversary of last year's slaughter at Virginia Tech, where a deranged kid killed 32.

I brought my Glock.

Alright, so Nick went into a "die-in" at Minnesota's State Capitol to commemorate an undoubtedly tragic killing... in Virginia. Clearly those Minnesota legislators are slacking if they're supposed to be accounting for legislative problems in Virginia. Virginia, Minnesota I believe they've got somewhere in the docket. Virginia, as in one of the original thirteen colonies? Not so much. Thanks for breaking this story Nick!

But the truly shocking statement here is that Nick - a self-described licensed concealed gun permit holder - chose to bring his gun to an anti-gun rally! Wow! That's totally a man-bites-dog kind of story! I can't wait to read the significance of this interesting symbolic act!

I didn't really.

Oh. Never mind. He made it up, because engaging in an act of actual irony is so much harder than not doing it and saying you did.

For the record I am reacting to this Nick Coleman column while enjoying his incredible mastery of prose.

Not really.

It would have been weird and crazy to take a gun to an event marking a massacre, especially the very kind of gun used in the massacre. But then again, this country is weird and crazy about guns.

Weirder and crazier to take a gun you're legally licensed to carry along with you than it is to begin a column about the event claiming that you did? I'm not so sure.

I mean if he'd kept the thing concealed and didn't start a spree killing would anyone have actually noticed? See this is where the anti-gun nuts and gun-nuts ought to be able to find some common ground. The firearm in question surely holds the potential for dangerous misuse. But considering that most police forces in the United States equip their officers with the exact same gun Nick is bloviating about today, it's hardly a case where the mere presence of a Glock causes people to start dying. Must we freak out like we're making some nonsensical syllogism every time we see a model of a gun some maniac once used (A mad man killed innocent people with a Glock. Than guy has a Glock. Therefore that guy must be a mad man about to start another killing spree. Eeek!!!)?

I went to a local gun store Wednesday (I have a permit) and found I could get a nifty Glock 19 -- the 9-millimeter semiautomatic model that Cho Seung-Hui used on April 16, 2007 -- for less than what Cho spent.

He bought his Glock for $571 at a Roanoke, Va., gun store. I could have purchased one Wednesday for $550.

It was on sale! Who says Americans don't celebrate history?

I know... the lack of any transition here is kind of jarring to the uninitiated Nick Coleman reader. I should have warned you. And no, I didn't cut out anything. Nick jumped from pretending to carry a gun to a "die-in" at the Minnesota State Capitol to pricing the very gun he was pointedly NOT going to have with him at the event immediately after confessing he would never, ever consider such a "weird and crazy" thing.

And apparently Nick thinks prices should be driven by moral outrage, rather than supply and demand, or the desire of a store owner to turn a profit. A Glock firearm - specifically one of the most common and popular models of one of the most common and popular hand guns in the world - must never come down in price, since a crazy guy once used it to massacre people. In Nick's world that's just common sense. In the real world we have a term for this. It's abbreviated: WTF??!!

The die-in (it was called a lie-in, actually)

...except by Nick Coleman until just now...

...was organized by Protect Minnesota, an umbrella group representing five gun-control organizations pushing for tighter rules on sales and universal background checks on buyers. Thirty-two people wore black T-shirts that said, "Minnesotans Against Being Shot" as well as ribbons of maroon and orange (Virginia Tech's colors) made by families of the victims. One by one, to the solemn beat of a drum, they went down on the Capitol steps and remained motionless, as if asleep.

So... the point of a bunch of people lying down on the Capitol steps was to make people think they were... sleeping? The topic of guns makes people too sleepy or something? I mean, the fact that there's a lobby who thinks they're uniquely opposed to being shot makes me kind of giggle. The fact that people want the Minnesota legislature to do something about campus safety in Virginia makes me groan. But what is this strange reference to sleeping? I mean, didn't Nick call this thing a "die-in" when even the organizers didn't? So shouldn't the reference be "as if dead" rather than "as if asleep"? What's the point of talking about sleeping here at all?

It was like the state Senate, but without the pompous speeches.

Oh. It was all just to set up ... that. He'll be here all week, folks. Tip your waitress.

OK, it was one of those media events that is easy to mock...

Actually, a lot easier to ignore until Nick put his unique stylings on the proceedings.

...and, indeed, it was mocked by a few underemployed members of the gun-rights lobby who couldn't resist the temptation to spoil a somber moment by holding up frat boy signs to the effect that a teacher or student packing heat could have stopped the carnage, which is the kind of thing I wonder about when a cop gets shot.

Funny how those cops continue to carry firearms, eh? I mean... they just get shot anyway. What's the point?

And for the record, I have no problem with juvenile demonstrations receiving juvenile responses. Acting "somber" is not an adequate stand in for being mature and serious about a topic.

Guns don't kill people. People with guns kill people. And sometimes people with guns kill other people with guns. It's as complicated as our feelings, and nobody's come up with a convincing response to slaughters such as Virginia Tech, especially proposals to let college kids carry guns on campus. Rep. Tony Cornish, a Republican from Good Thunder, introduced one such obscenely timed proposal Wednesday. Are you kidding, Cornish? Have you ever been to a kegger at Mankato or St. Cloud or the U of M and thought, "Cool! I hope these dudes have guns!"

Yeah, I'm pretty sure the idea of the bill was to hand out firearms as freely as stale beer at drunken frat parties. As someone who - allegedly - completed Minnesota's process for legally acquiring a concealed carry permit, Nick would probably be better suited than most to point out the actual merits or detriments of any such bill. You know, how many college students would be able to meet the requirements and based on that how likely they might be to provide any change in protection in cases like the shooting in question - that kind of thing.

Yet, Nick being Nick, he can't resist reverting to the same kind of baseless jibes you could draw from any lefty yokel. Colleges are basically Animal House because that's snarkable when we're considering allowing the students to apply for concealed carry licenses. They're tender places of serious learning populated by our precious next generation only when they're facing down the other side of the gun barrel.

The die-in folks [wasn't it a "lie-in" or perhaps "sleep in" just moments ago? - ed.] had a spot of trouble with choreography. At first, they began prostrating themselves from the west end of a line of "victims," but that was wrong. They regrouped, helped the first few victims back to their feet and resumed falling down from the other end of the line as planned. You ever have one of those days?

One of those days where I needed to pad a column, so I started tossing in damn near anything I had in my notes regardless of how relevant it was to the point I forgot I was trying to make? Can't say that I have.

As silly as it was, it produced an emotional response. Some of the folks falling down were real-life parents of gun victims in the Twin Cities, and it is hard to see 32 people on the ground (I could only count 31, despite several tries) without a twinge of horror at the senselessness of the violence in the world.

Alright this column is starting to get random and senseless in its own horrific way. Nick counted 31 people over and over and came away convinced he saw 32 people on the ground. Which we earlier learned made Nick think they looked asleep. And somehow this whole package - we are to conclude - is impossible to witness without a jarring revelation about senseless violence worldwide. This from the guy who counts to 31 and apparently has a "twinge" making him unexplainably leap to 32.

One of the real-life victims' moms was Doris Thomas, whose 15-year-old son, Tony, was gunned down in north Minneapolis two years ago.

Wait... her son was gunned down in north Minneapolis? Tragic as that may be, wasn't this about concealed carry laws on college campuses? Or the sale price of Glock 19's? Or commemorating the tragedy of a year ago in Virginia? Oh wait... we must be on to the senselessness of violence now.

"It was very serene," said Thomas of her time lying on the steps, "dead." "I didn't have any strong thoughts or a vision. I just thought about my son and how there was truth to the words we are saying."

So were they lying "dead", "asleep", or just "serenely." This column has taken all three positions, and it's almost over. Will we ever know for sure? How random and senseless.

Then there's this matter of Nick quoting someone talking about the truth of the words they were saying, and not bothering to clue us in on what those words actually were. Welcome to your role as a mere prop for another one of Nick Coleman's egotistical ramblings Doris.

The Virginia Tech killer shouldn't have gotten a gun, because he should have been in a psychiatric ward. Virginia closed that loophole two weeks after the 32 died. But there remain many loopholes to shut, including in Minnesota, where some unlicensed sellers can still sell guns to unknown buyers without background checks. To tighten those laws is not anti-gun. It is pro-safety.

So, wait... the loophole which allowed the killer in question to get a gun has been closed. In Virginia. So that's not really the issue here. This protest in Minnesota was important because there are "many loopholes to shut." Umm... gosh, that sounds like it might deserve a column to point out what those might be... oh darn, Nick's almost out of space.

"It's harder to transfer title to my fishing boat than a gun," said St. Paul City Council Member Lee Helgen, who was displaying a gun shot map showing that the area north of the Capitol was well-sprayed with gunfire last month.

"Something is broken."

Yes, but the warranty on Nick has expired, so we have to keep him anyway. Ha! I keed.

Seriously, where in any of this was it established that Minnesota is having a problem stemming from the legal transfer of firearms? Because a bunch of shooting happened last month in Frogtown? Were any of these shootings the result of legally transferred firearms resulting from a specific legislative "loophole" we're supposed to support closing because they're somehow related to the spree killing at Virginia Tech last year?

Oh, if only some local columnist cared enough to look into such a matter to let us know! Don't bother Nick though. He's all done in his characteristic "I only care to the extent I don't have to research anything I can't easily Google" style, he's finished with the topic.

What we've learned:

A. Nick totally did not carry a Glock to a small demonstration of gun-control activists at the State Capitol. Suck on that, gun nuts!

B. If Nick counts to 31 several times it equals 32.

C. There are dangerous, unspecified loopholes regarding the transfer of firearms which Nick believes ought to be closed.

D. You don't have to write very well or make much sense to have your own column in the Star Tribune.