I had several friends in high school who were blind. Our school was the only one in the District that had a whole program for them. One of those high school friends was a young lady who sang like an angel. Another was a kid I'd known since grade school because his brother was in my same grade and we hung out quite a bit comin' up. That kid was a heckuva drummer, but not only on his kit. He could sit down at a kit and "flick" the heads and cymbals with his fingers to figure out how the kit was set up, and then play like he was on his own kit in just a minute or two. Out of the many garage bands that came out of our 6,000-student-body high school every year, he was among the most sought-after drummer.
Anyway, they came to that school with skills that were really quite remarkable. The walk-ways around the campus were very wide with large brick planters interspersed around in no discernible logical order. Add to those obstacles a bunch of trash cans, a skateboard that might just be left while its owner is talking to friends or whatever, and during period-changes, hundreds of people walking in every conceivable direction. Lorita, the blind girl, did use a cane in one hand, but like Bob, the blind drummer who didn't use a cane, would walk around snapping their fingers (lightly) and could walk around any obstacle just like they could see as good as you or I. It was a kind of developed sonar. Their ears had so completely compensated for the lack of vision that they could discern the amount of time an echo or reverberation returned to tell them what was in front of them. Well, maybe not "what" was in front of them, but that there was indeed a significant obstacle there.
For all those thinking this is just a ridiculous idea, did George Zimmerman aim before he fired? Could he see his target clearly? He simply felt the pain and helplessness of being mounted by an attacker in the dark, and managed to draw his weapon and fire into him, even thinking when it was over that he missed him and that he gave up only because the shot let him know his victim had a gun (or at least that was GZ's story). But just think about being a fight for your life. How much do you actually see, and how much natural point-and-shoot do most people actually engage in?
I have a couple of concerns about blind folk having guns, but I don't have a flat-out, knee-jerk objection to the idea. If they can be illegally attacked, they have the right to defend themselves. They would also have the responsibility to account for any harm a stray bullet might cause just like the rest of us. I've spent a ton of time with just normal folk who happen to be blind, and have witnessed them accomplish remarkable things, from skiing to surfing, so I can't consider their challenges so debilitating as to justify taking their rights of self defense away from them.
Blues
