Emmanuel professor fired after shooting re-enactment

[Ian David]

BOSTON -- A professor at Emmanuel College has been fired for his in-class re-enactment of the Virginia Tech shootings.

Nicholas Winset was terminated and permanently barred from the Boston campus after a lecture he gave on Wednesday showed the gunman could have been stopped if another student was carrying a gun, according to a Boston Herald report.

On the Internet web site You Tube, Winset explains how he used a magic marker as a depiction of a gun.

Winset said the re-enactment was part of a lecture on the issue of gun control. He said he wanted to teach his students that they should fight back in violent situations.



More:
http://www1.whdh.com/news/articles/local/BO49829/

Pure genius!

It would have been so much better if once gunshots were heard, a whole bunch of armed students showed up wondering who they need to shoot. And they'd be surrounded by other students, wondering if THEY are the ones that need to be shot. And when the cops show up, they'd find a campus full of armed students pointing guns at one another.

Yeah.

[ClassWarrior]

1. Or all on the floor with firearms to pry from their cold, dead hands.

NGU.

[Heidi]

2. Here are the four youtube links where Winset explains his situation:

1 of 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-cBKXyRvyM
2 of 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlJDyMXvsiY
3 of 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02JpWpMubIE
4 of 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02JpWpMubIE

[Botany]

9. Thank God he was fired.

Can you think of sitting and listening to that dolt for an hour?

He clicks his tongue @ the start of each thought ....
It has been a while but I would have dropped his class in a heartbeat.

[BlueManDude]

3. this dude will be on foxnews by wednesday

i'm sure this will now become a cause celebre for the rw and he'll get all kinds of high powered legal help gratis.

these people are dangerous and crazy.

[LiberalFighter]

4. Did he present this lesson plan to anyone in his department?

[LiberalFighter]

5. On Face the Nation

There was response by a guest to Newt Gingrich's suggestion to allow everyone to carry a firearm.

Response: First, was that it should be up to the faculty. Second, would you (Gingrich) want to be in front of a class knowing that there may be students with a firearm on their person?

[Township75]

6. He got fired for this?

Seriously, I can understand criticism of this, but firing? Isn't academia supposed to question everything? If he is really off-base then if anything, his students likely would just more strongly support gun control.

[live love laugh]

11. I agree. Free speech is important. nt

[bluerum]

14. Advocating armed students in the classroom - I should hope his ass was

fired.

Pure madness.

If I was the dean of a school where one of the teachers was telling students that they should be armed - it would take me 5 seconds to call the police and get his ass out - for my protection and for the protection of the students and the protection of the institution.

This is the height if irresponsibility. People running around telling others to get a gun - you need to get a gun to defend yourself! It is truly insane.

[muriel_volestrangler]

20. But he was advocating a change in the rules, not breaking them

Sure, it's a dumb idea. But that doesn't mean he's endangering people.

A better reason for firing him is wasting students' time - he was meant to be teaching them financial accounting, and bringing your own hobby-horse (with no relevance to what you're hired to teach) into college lectures is unprofessional.

[proud2BlibKansan]

7. What an idiot

[Botany]

8. If the girls were just like Uma Thurman in "Kill Bill," & the guys had ....

.... Ninja "Throwing Death Stars," then the gunman could have been stopped.

BTW Nicholas Winset looks pretty soft and doughy from his picture.

[live love laugh]

10. Maybe Regent will hire him. nt

[GaYellowDawg]

12. Not a professor. An adjunct.

He should have known - you do something stupid or controversial as an adjunct and you're likely to get fired.

[lonestarnot]

13. Yeah western justice. That will take care of everything.

:eyes: Isn't this an educated person? Violence begets violence. Someone send that boy back to school before he gets another education position.

[bluerum]

15. Sadly, education is no cure for ego issues. eom

[lonestarnot]

16. If properly educated, the ego issues go away.

[bluerum]

17. You would think. But not always so. Look at the pretzeldent. He

had tremendous educational opportunity. I fear it was all wasted.

[lonestarnot]

18. Are you kidding. He was never educated. He just received a piece of paper.

[Eric J in MN]

19. What subject was he hired to teach?

And was he telling students to break campus rules (if any) against carrying guns?

[muriel_volestrangler]

21. Financial accounting

http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=195909

[Eric J in MN]

22. If the campus bans guns, and he told the students to defy the ban,

...then the firing was reasonable.

If not, then he probably should have been given a warning but not fired.

[depakid]

23. Some choice quotes

"Winset said the skit was meant to be a somewhat tenuous segue into an assignment asking students to examine whether the massacre has had an impact on the financial markets, which have remained healthy in tragedy’s aftermath..."

Sure it was.

“Also enclosed . . .is the Commonwealth of Massachusetts form, How to File for Unemployment Insurance Benefits.”

Don't let the hit your butt on the way out.

[Madspirit]

24. Hmmm

I hate this guy AND his idea BUT I thought college was a place for discussion of ideas. If he presented this and said his students could give no differing opinions, I would think he deserved his canning but it is a valid college discussion, imo.
Lee

[Psephos]

25. What you said. n/t

[ProudDad]

26. This is wrong

If one really believes in free speech.

I would have allowed this guy to stay but I would have required this person to engage in a public debate with a few worthy debaters from both sides of the gun issue, students and professors, for the benefit of the students.

That would have been an appropriate response in an (allegedly) academic environment -- let them fight it out with a war of words.

True gun-nuts can NEVER be persuaded but I'm sure a good debate on the issue would help rational folks on the fence decide for the sane side of the issue -- make guns rare, safe and legal.