by Travis Mateer

Two pieces of news caught my attention regarding actions being requested to make some people FEEL safer. Will they actually BE safer? I don’t know, but I could probably develop a suitable answer for a hefty consulting fee.

Some testimony apparently happened this week up in Helena because the Multi-Modal Zealots (MMZs) would like to expand the police state to make them safer from motorists running red lights. I wonder if any of these supporters every criticized giving MORE money to law enforcement during the summer of rage? I dunno, but I doubt this effort will go anywhere.

This is happening because MMZs like to turn tragedy into opportunity, and THIS is the tragedy inspiring this current opportunity for…red light cameras!

If you run a red light in Montana, you won’t get a citation unless an officer sees you. That’s because red light traffic cameras have been outlawed statewide since 2009, when the state Legislature passed House Bill 531.

Now, that camera conversation is being reignited following the death of a beloved Montana teacher. Forty-year-old Billings native, Kelly Fulton, was hit and killed in October, 2022, while riding his bike to school, where he worked as a math teacher at Bozeman High School.

The article goes on to deploy some heavy emotional manipulation about how this man’s kids were saved by banana muffins (necessitating a car ride to school instead of the fatal bicycle ride) and maybe, JUST MAYBE, a future father’s life will be saved by what these grieving people “believe” will be a deterrent (emphasis mine):

Muffins may have saved two lives this time, but the family hopes to save more by shedding light on state legislation that bans the use of red-light cameras in Montana. It’s technology they believe would deter drivers from running red lights.

Yes, it should be obvious by now that simply BELIEVING something will make you safer is a good enough reason to impose your preferred method of being safer onto others.

The other story involves emails that are required to be sent out by Universities informing staff and students of sexual assaults, but those emails can be very scary and triggering, so obviously they require their OWN WARNINGS. Recently an email was sent out WITHOUT that warning, and that was a mistake. From the link (emphasis mine):

The Clery Act requires universities to send out timely warnings to students if there are any crimes that “are considered to have a serious and ongoing threat” to the broader campus.

“I was in class and I got a notification on my phone of Clery Act’s timely warning, and it was very activating for me because sexual assaults were in the title of the email.” Heaton said, “And I didn’t even have to read the body of the email to be like ‘whoa.’ And then it was kind of on my mind, sort of distracted from education a little bit because it was in class.”

The bill text cited eight Clery Act timely warnings since September 2021 regarding physical and/or sexual violence Only two of them had content warnings. UMPD Chief Brad Giffin said it is protocol to include content warnings, and omissions in recent emails have been by mistake.

There was one brave ASUM Senator willing to point out that warning emails are sort of worry-inducing by design. In fact, it’s kind of like their main function.

Senator Adrian Cook said that the point of the Clery Act and the timely warnings email is to, to an extent, worry the student body about the crimes by informing them about them. Clery Act emails always ask for students to send tips about the crime in question, according to UMPD’s website.

Hang in there, MMZs and UM students, help is on the way!

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