Mitch Perry
Happy Friday, everyone.
I was going to write about another subject for today, but it feels a bit trivial compared to the big headline of the morning.
I know that the overwhelming majority of gun owners in America are responsible. But even if there’s only a tiny, tiny percentage of people who are irresponsible with guns in this country (there are reportedly around 300 million floating around), it’s a problem.
This morning Americans are awakening to yet another gun shooting — OK, maybe it’s not a mass shooting, but some 58-year-old fool in Lafayette, La., went off in a movie theater during a screening of Trainwreck, and killed two people, wounded nine others, before killing himself.
There wasn’t the carnage that took place in an Aurora, Col., theatre screening of The Dark Knight Rises in 2012, but really, I’m sure if you were in that theater last night, it was pretty terrifying.
At the now defunct Channelside movie theatre, there were armed police for that weekend’s screenings of that film. Perhaps it was because that film was so hyped (and so intense) that there was a fear that there could be more violence. I don’t think anyone today is concerned that there could be more shootings at the Amy Schumer flick — but still, how many more incidents of these types are going to make it a drag to go the cinema?
Movie theater owners have to be concerned, if nobody else is. With cable companies offering more movies on demand than ever, the incentive to go to a cinema has to be hurt by last night. Or maybe not, since the country seems to collectively shrug its shoulders when it comes to the outrageous prevalence of gun violence in this country.
OK — enough of the lecture. It’s not going to stop me from hitting a cinema this weekend. As Siskel & Ebert used to say at the end of every one of their weekly shows, we’ll — or I’ll — see you at the movies …
In other news …
Activists — and state Rep. Dwight Dudley — rallied in St. Petersburg Thursday to call for Florida to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Considering that appears to raise it from $8.05 to $10.10 went nowhere this year in the state Legislature, it may be a tough lift.
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Bob Buckhorn laid down his $850 million budget to the Tampa City Council on Thursday, a document he referred to as “not sexy.” You be the judge.
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California’s Tea Party Express is all behind Ron DeSantis for U.S. Senate.
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Jeb Bush, a Catholic since 1996, knows that evangelicals are a crucial element of the GOP base, especially in primary elections. It was reported Thursday that he’ll be speaking before 13,000 evangelicals next month in Nashville.
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Meanwhile, Democrats went to town Thursday regarding Bush’s comment that Medicare needs to be “phased out.”
