Blackberry Mightier Than the Barretta

By Keith R. Schmitz

Best wishes to Mayor Tom Barrett and a speedy recovery after suffering injuries from doing the right thing after leaving the State Fair last night. Milwaukee metro is lucky to have such a caring individual in charge of city government and no doubt he will be back on the job soon.

Back at State Fair this morning, wasn't more than a couple of hours working the Democratic Party booth when a guy with, gasp an actual skin head, breezed by and threw out one of those cheap shot lines you get (sure the other side gets them too), "hey this wouldn't have happen if we had conceal and carry."

Don't know if I want my metro mayor carrying around a piece. Kind of sends a negative message don't you think?

Reminds me of a similar situation a few months back that happened on Farwell Ave. just up from the gas station off Knapp Street.

Godless socialist that I am, I was ready to cross the street to make a meeting at the Milwaukee Interfaith Conference office when I heard someone shouting for help.

A white guy in roughly his mid-thirties had just pounded an old black man to the ground and kicked him into the street in front of an on-coming car, whose driver was sharp enough to stop in time.

My man side told me to do something about this, but my rational side intervened and quickly calculated the odds of this working out for me, which weren't good.

So I shouted, "hey jackass, check this out, I'm calling the cops" as I slowly and visibly withdrew my Blackberry from a shirt pocket.

The guy looked up, stood erect and headed right for me but then went wide and ran north. The cops did arrive, got my statement and what ever happened next, I don't know.

A conservative Christian relative of mine said too bad I didn't have a gun, because in beating up the other guy he gave up his right of me not shooting him.

So what if I did? There was that one second as he approached me during which if I had a gun and plugged him, later to find him unarmed, a feeling of total crap would have descended on me and would have stayed glued the rest of my life. The knowledge of course in a time like that is imperfect to be sure, but the potential to injure my psyche very significant.

As it is, I feel damn clever about what I did and I'll buy that.

So ponder the ridiculous idea of the Mayor having a gun. Chances are very likely that the 20 year old guy, or the Mayor or his kids could have been shot or killed. A bad situation would have been much worse.

The bullets don't go back into the barrel and those who get off on the empowerment a gun gives them fail to recognize yet another set of actions that have consequences.