How Do You Like Me Now?! Concealed Carry of Water Pistols

Olin Café is a blazing inferno. Earlier today, sixteen laptop cables got tangled in a pile of discarded newspapers, thesis rough drafts and dirty napkins. The resulting garbage heap burst into flames, quickly spreading to mounds of down coats and still-unread copies of The Pickup by Natalie Gordimer. As hundreds of smoking hot students fled the café screaming, they were “shushed” by librarians.

This all too believable hypothetical points out a glaring safety concern at Cornell University: Students are not allowed to conceal water guns on campus. Let’s look at the facts: Cornell is a tinderbox, a powder keg, a dry pile of leaves, an oil tanker in a movie directed by Michael Bay. The nearest fire department is literally a mile away. It could take minutes, maybe even ten minutes for a fire department to respond to a five-alarm blaze. Students should be allowed to fight their own fires, and they should be allowed to do so with a hidden squirt gun.

Now my number one concern, as always, is safety. I don’t want a squad of wasted, water-wielding vigilantes running around on campus any more than you do. Think of the countless suede jackets that could be ruined. What I do want are licensed 18-20 year olds walking amongst us, secretly packing 10 gallons of responsibility each. I want them in libraries, I want them on the Arts Quad, and for God’s sake, I want water guns in each and every single dorm.

I don’t want little 99 cent squirt guns on campus either. Oh no! I want the real deal. I want the Super Soaker CPS 2000. I want backpacks filled with reserve tanks. I want to ride the TCAT next to a guy packing 221 PSI of fire-extinguishing power. If you do so much as throw your cigarette into a bush, I want you and everything within a 50 foot radius sprayed with a Splash Mountain of refreshing Aquafina.

Again, this is about safety and security. The only responsible way for us to be safe from a fire is to have relatively untrained students firing squirt pistols willy-nilly at perceived fire threats. Increased funding for local fire departments, or increased fire inspections, or fire safety awareness programs would be woefully inadequate. To reiterate: I trust nobody but myself to stop a fire on campus. This is why I will fight for my right to stuff my shorts with water balloons.

Allow me to introduce you to S.A. Resolution 17.5, which will call for “Concealed Carry [of Water guns] on Campus.” Remember a few years back when the S.A. stopped Iran dead in its evil tracks? This will be just like that, only sillier.

And it’s not just about fires. We all know what happens every spring and fall. Countless engineers and their “friends” will turn into zombies, wear green headbands, purchase Nerf guns and take to the streets. Who will protect us from these marauding monsters, these anime aficionados? Will Day Hall? Will Skorton? Will Biddy Martin? I highly doubt it. We, the students deserve the right to squirt these suckers back to oblivion before they generally creep the hell out of future I-bankers and their “friends.”

Some opponents of Res 17.5 worry about collateral damage. They stay up at nights worried that they will get caught up in a cross fire, or that some nut job will somehow gain the right to carry a water cannon on campus. Let me put these concerns to rest. See, if a crazy person does bring a water gun to campus, you won’t even know about it until it’s too late! That’s the beauty of concealment; you won’t ever know who has a gun until they whip it out and spray you. Your lab partner could have 1.5 ounces of safety strapped to his leg, or your professor could be stashing 12 gallons of prevention loaded right under her desk. Do you really want to ask for a grade change now? Didn’t think so.

Members of the S.A., students, faculty, and staff: I implore you to think of the consequences. If we don’t enact proposition 17.5 now, in a matter of weeks the campus could become no more than a flaming shell of an institution, literally crawling with zombies. I want these fires extinguished; I want these zombies soaked to the skin and sent shivering back to West Campus. I want each and every man woman and child on this campus armed to the teeth. Safety: it’s not about prevention; it’s about rushing to fight fire with a wet blast of Rambo-style justice.

Charlie Niesenbaum, a certified Water Pistol Enthusiast, is a post-grad in the College of Water War Sciences. It’s a state school. He can be contacted at niesenbaum@gmail.com [3]. Water Pistol Enthusiast appears rarely.