A story broke this week which has really gotten to me. It has no direct affect on my life, but it is really aggravating and indicative of a societal problem.

Here’s the story. Leyla Pirnie is a graduate student at Harvard. She is from Alabama and completed undergraduate studies in International Relations and Political Science. She was born to American parents in Turkey and is 24 years old. She is also a legal gun owner.

After a recent weekend away, Ms. Pirnie returned to her apartment to be confronted by her roommates. While she was away, her roommates took it upon themselves to search her room, including her closet, her dresser, and under her bed. When she asked the other women why they had done this, they told her they, “saw that you had a MAGA hat and come on, you’re from Alabama… so we just kind of assumed that you had something“. By something, they meant a firearm, which they found. When she asked why they felt it necessary to go prowling through her personal possessions rather than just ask her, one of them told her, “fear took over her body and she felt compelled to search my room until she found proof”.

As if this weren’t bad enough, and surely, it is, the roommates reported their find to David Lewis, their landlord. Mr. Lewis proceeded to contact the Somerville (Massachusetts) Police Department and request they come to the apartment to inspect the firearms to make sure they were legal. All was found to be in order. Regardless, Mr. Lewis informed Ms. Pirnie that she would have to remove the firearms from the premises, or her roommates would leave.  If they left, she would have been responsible for the entire $6,000 per month rent (That must be one hell of an apartment!). She refused to dispose of her legally owned personal property and had to move.

At this point, let me summarize. Six women with no personal relationship with Ms. Pirnie other than sharing an apartment with her, entered her private room without permission, rummaged through her personal property, reported what they found to their landlord, who summoned the police to inspect said property. All without the owner’s knowledge. If you are OK with this scenario, please stop reading here and click over to Huffington Post or Mother Jones and go in peace. If your blood pressure just spiked, proceed.

There is no evidence Ms. Pirnie caused any sort of discomfort for her roommates. She stated she did not discuss her political views with them at all. She never had her firearms out around her roommates and owned them legally. The other women had no reason to fear Ms. Pirnie or her firearms, as they obviously didn’t even know she had them until they searched her room. For now, let’s ignore the obvious violations of Ms. Pirnie’s rights. Let’s ignore the profiling and discrimination to which she has been subjected. A discussion of those topics would require a separate post.

I keep coming back to the fact these supposedly adult, educated, women didn’t have the maturity to simply talk to her about their concerns, whether those concerns were well founded or not. Once they found her guns, they ran to the landlord, who then didn’t have the maturity to question how the roommates came by their knowledge of the presence of the firearms, but got law enforcement involved instead. If anyone had bothered to ask, they would have learned Ms. Pirnie survived a physically abusive relationship and kept firearms for protection. I guess #metoo doesn’t apply to  women who have elected to protect themselves.

Come on, people! Grow up! A grown man called in the police because a tenant owned a gun? The responding officer should have at least given Lewis a stern lecture for wasting his time. It would almost be understandable if Ms. Pirnie had threatened her roommates or behaved in some irresponsible manner. There is no evidence this happened. No, this whole thing is the result of the media’s constant attempts to instill fear of gun owners into their audience. The people involved in this story lack the emotional and intellectual maturity to see the foolishness of their reaction. They are the result of leftist efforts to criminalize thoughts and beliefs which differ from theirs. This is what happens when universities don’t allow speakers of differing opinions to appear on campus. This is what happens when there are safe spaces. If we truly want people to get along, this has to stop. People have to be allowed to grow up.