A Note on Gunners

Gunners are probably the single most annoying thing about law school. The urban dictionary defines a law school gunner as such:


1. Noun:
Someone who hijacks class discussion (and hence, class time) with irrelevant, or tangential opinions and/or questions.

2. Noun:
Someone who attempts, usually (and repeatedly) failing, to demonstrate his or her intellectual prowess by asking questions "out side the box." These questions, and the answers/discussion they force the professor to entertain, are never tested and rarely add positively to the lecture.

3. Someone who repeatedly asks questions during lectures that would be more appropriately discussed after class.


There are a few such gunners in my classes. The biggest one I will call Mr. R. Mostly because I don't actually know his first name and don't know how to spell his last name. Luckily I only have two out my four classes with him. His favorite pass time is to bring up cases referenced in the book that we haven't actually been assigned and that the professor doesn't even know into his position. One time in contracts, he said and I quote "I'm glad you brought up that point Professor, it was just what I wanted to discuss." He then proceeded on a commentary that really had nothing to do with anything pertinent. His favorite topic in Torts is trespass of chattels which he has now been told several times that we will not cover in this class and yet somehow at least once a week he feels the need to ask "would this not constitute a trespass of chattels". The rest of the class is getting frustrated with him. The other day we were going over a medical malpractice case. The question being discussed was whether or not the lady would have consented to the surgery if she had known the risks and alternative treatments. He raises his hand to read off the list of symptoms of her condition on the Mayo Clinic. All of the symptoms were related to female menstruation and none of them sounded particularly burdensome beyond the normal symptoms for that sort of thing. He chose to use these symptoms (because they were so bad by his estimation) as the reason she would have consented to a surgery despite the risks. A female student quickly rebutted, "Obviously you don't have any idea of what it is like to be a women". Priceless. 


Too be fair, Mr. R is not the only gunner. There is Mr. W who keeps his hand raised after he has been called on while he is talking. "Excuse me professor, I would like to comment on my comment as soon as I am done commenting". Really? Why is that necessary? Put your hand down.


There is the girl that makes assumptions mostly based on important words she missed in the reading like NOT. Then comments are always followed by an incredibly smug smile that screams "Aren't I the smartest person ever?"


In short, gunners are a waste of time. Their entertainment value, which is not slight, is far outweighed by the level that they annoy me. Unfortunately class schedules are up for the next semester and guess who is still in at least two of my classes....