Well, I for one am relieved Chagrin Falls council and the police department have agreed to postpone their discussion of a possible Blossom Time Backpack Ban until next year. Why a ban? Because backpacks are a good hiding place for dangerous “contraband” which is cop talk for guns.

As you may recall there was a gun scare on the Riverside Park midway at last year’s festival. It proved to be much ado about nothing but, what if it weren’t?

As we know, village cops are all about being proactive and an up close and personal style of community policing so the backpack issue was a natural concern and council was asked to consider legislation that would allow officers to check them.

The coming year will give us all a chance to study the idea, do what is best or do nothing at all. Along the way we are also sure to hear from the everything, everywhere, all at once gun lobby. Prediction: They won’t like it. Even if there is no ban, the lobby will take the opportunity to rail against even the idea that Chagrin Falls was considering such an afront.

To review, Blossom Time draws people from everywhere and while the cops know the local troublemakers, they have not made the acquaintance of those from out of town whose backpacks could contain more than a few beers and change of underwear.

Its tricky  To search every backpack carried into downtown Chagrin Falls during Blossom Time weekend would be a daunting task for our small police department which suggested the idea.

But it gets complicated and here’s why. Think profiling, a frowned-upon practice that singles out people for the way they look, their attitude or skin color.

Let’s see how this might work on the Riverside Park Blossom midway. Oh, look! Her come two guys now and both have backpacks slung over their shoulders.

The first is a swaggering, scary looking dude with the Second Amendment tattooed on his forehead. The other is a smiling fellow in an Oxford button down, chinos and freely informs police that he uses the gun grandpa gave him to shoot beer cans off a tree stump. The cop checking bags has only time to check one. Whose bag will it be?

So, what about profiling? Is profiling a civil rights issue? What does the law say? Is the whole backpack thing a non-starter because of Ohio’s preemptive conceal carry law?

The coming 12 months will be time enough for the village’s legal eagles to find the answers and provide wise counsel. Then it will fall to the police chief, mayor and village council to decide if a Blossom Time backpack search or ban makes sense. Take it to the bank, we are sure to hear from the everything everywhere all at once gun folks. Let the letters to the editor begin!   

Guns get me into trouble with the second amendment every time the subject comes up. It did again last week and I have only myself to blame. It happened on social media when I spotted a meme about the second amendment and glories of unfettered gun ownership blah, blah, blah.

I should of kept scrolling. So, sue me, I could not keep my opinions to myself.  I was born free in America and my goal is to shuffle off this mortal coil of natural causes and free of bullet holes. And so I did what you are not supposed to do on the Internet. I engaged John Generic (not his real name) the guy responsible for the glory be to guns post.

No one wins these arguments and, while gun  law advocates can claim a “thou shalt not kill” moral victory,  it is  the “cold dead hands” folks that have bragging rights to getting their way most of the time, in all 50 states and the District of Columbia..

My comments were met unkindly by Generic John who called me an idiot, a moron and a “third rate reporter or columnist or whatever.”  No, he didn’t hurt my feelings. I am not the frail rose type. But, where’s the proof of my moronic idiocy? Then I remembered social media is where you go for verbal abuse not proof or facts.

A little history. James Madison was primary wordsmith of the second amendment with changes provided by the senate and house of representatives.

There was disagreement among members of that first American congress and  no roll call  vote on the bearing of arms and militia forming amendment but it was confirmed by consensus.

The founders got it right on our guiding principles but could not predict a future when “weapons of mass destruction” would be a thing.

I have a vision of James Madison and his compatriots having conniption fits over what the second amendment has wrought whenever there is mass shooting in America and dozens of lives are lost in less time it took them to load their flintlock muskets.