by Judy Frank
posted July 7, 2009
Red Bank Commission members voted 4-1 Tuesday evening to postpone a vote on whether to prohibit guns in parks for two weeks.
The suggestion to table the matter came from Commissioner Greg Jones, who said he has had second thoughts about the matter since being contacted by numerous people who opposed the ban.
He himself does not have a concealed weapon permit, he admitted, but would like to do so in the future. And if law enforcement officers are allowed to take their weapons into parks and other public places, then citizens with permits should have the same right, he said.
Red Bank Mayor Joe Glasscock, who does have a concealed weapon permit, cast the lone vote against delaying the vote.
“I have a gun,” he declared, “but I’m not going to carry it in parks.”
The standoff was watched with great interest by citizens attending the meeting.
“Now that was interesting,” one woman commented to another. “I think we just watched the beginning of Greg Jones’ campaign to be the next mayor of Red Bank.”
The vote also prompted some citizens to stand up later in the meeting and comment on what commissioners had done.
One man chided Commissioner Jones for equating police officers’ duty to carry weapons to protect the public with a private citizen’s desire to carry concealed guns.
“Police officers have a lot more training in how to handle their weapons,” he declared. “People with permits don’t get that training . . . We don’t need a bunch of ‘cowboys’ running around with guns in parks where children are playing.”
But another man thanked commissioners for delaying the vote.
His two children were students at Virginia Tech a few years ago when a lone gunman shot and killed numerous people on the campus, he said.
He blames administrators at the school, he said, because they prohibited students and faculty from carrying weapons. Had one or more of the people targeted by the gunman been armed, they might have been able to intervene, he said.
“Having a computer doesn’t make you a hacker,” he said. “Having a lighter doesn’t make you an arsonist. And having a gun doesn’t make you a killer.”
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