Annie Get Your Gun

Yesterday night, coming back to campus on the metro, I sat down in a relatively full car just across from a rather unique looking character. He was wearing a dirty, torn, reaking, and obviously mismatched army uniform. He had a German flag patch on his arm, was wearing a couple of different layers for warmth and impermeability and had a camo back pack. He was sporting a sort of mushroom cut but with the sides totally shaven and had bites or welts of some sort on his face and neck.

Like everyone around me, I tried not to give him too much attention but without seeming to be shunning him. However, especially wearing a suit and carrying a laptop bag, I couldn't help but feel rather unsafe and, yet again, understand why one would want to carry a weapon wherever they go. In two other instances here in DC I've found myself sitting apprehensively with my hand in my pocket and my thumb on the "9" button of my cellphone.

In Newfoundland, within days of the incident in which border officials killed an agitated, though seemingly harmless Polish immigrant in a Vancouver airport using a Taser, their use and future purchase was halted. Since the province's first acquisition of Tasers in 2003, they have never been used.