The writer – a native South Dakotan – seems to think there’s something noteworthy about a man openly carrying this
(that’s a Dad picking up his kid at the airport) in the sweet idle setting of a summer fair. Massive overt personal weaponry seems wrong, somehow, in places like summer fairs, airports, churches, hospitals, schools…
But steely-eyed thin-lipped SD Sen. Mykala Voita
presses hard and successfully on the legislature to arm South Dakotans everywhere – in particular, on college campuses and in bars.
Instead of letting any student keep a handgun in their dorm room and carry it to class if they wish (as the original bill, unbelievably, would have done and as Voita made clear she still prefers), SB 100 now allows only gun owners who have qualified for an enhanced concealed carry permit to have a pistol on campus.
Now, see, again, that “unbelievably” – this is from the same SD’an who thinks it’s really something to see a man openly toting an AR15 at a summer fair – tips you off that this writer is out of step with her state and should probably be living in godless gunless Garrett Park with UD. As should Republican Senator Steve Duffy (Rapid City), who not only voted against arming bar patrons but said, “This is crazy. When you mix booze and guns I don’t know how you can expect anything good to happen. Sooner or later, there’s going to be trouble.”
But hey this is fuckin Deadwood South Dakota! Sure there’s gonna be trouble, and Voita knows that, but it’s the wild fuckin west so let ‘er rip. Nihilism, ho!