I attended the 1:15 p.m showing on Saturday of the The Dark Knight Rises at the big Imax screen in Channelside. As the lights went down I noticed a Tampa Police officer standing in front of one of the two exits of the screening room, which I admit made me feel slightly enervated, mainly because he was armed and was obviously there for a certain reason.
You've heard some 2nd Amendment aficionados remark say the same thing they did after the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, and indeed said back in 1998 after Columbine. That is, if those who were being shot at in those massacres were armed, things somehow would have been different.
Maybe the day will come during the next mass shooting where there will be somebody who will fire back, or maybe several people. But that day hasn't happened yet though, which says something about the logic of the argument, doesn't it?
Though there are some who say now is not yet the time for a conversation regarding gun control, others say not only is it the appropriate time, but they hope that more than just "conversation" can result from trying to find a way to prevent somebody from buying 6000 rounds of ammunition over the Internet.
Yesterday on the various Sunday talk shows, Michael Bloomberg, Diane Feinstein and Carolyn McCarthy were those elected officials who say more needs to be done now.
Late last week this reporter held a public conversation with Pinellas County Democratic congressional aspirant Jessica Ehrlich. Here are some of the highlights.
And we've got a couple of items on the Republican National Convention that takes place 35 days from today. The anti-war group Code Pink will be in town the weekend before the big event, while there are some conservatives worried that a plank in the party's platform regarding same sex marriage could be softened.
