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Updated: 11:08 AM Feb 16, 2008
Allowing Guns on Campus
Harrisonburg, Va. In the wake of Thursday's shooting at NIU, the issue of allowing students and faculty to carry concealed weapons on campus is getting renewed attention. Posted: 6:56 PM Feb 15, 2008Reporter: Kelly Creswell Email Address: kcreswell@whsv.com |
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4 Comments
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There are hundreds of thousands of people with concealed weapons licenses. If they are a danger, there would be a clear track record of violence committed by such people. However, the opposite is true. There is a clear record of these people preventing and stopping active shooters and violent criminals. If you want fewer mass public shootings, you have to allow more law abiding citizens to carry defensive weapons.
Andrew, I couldnt agree more. The Army trusts them with a multi-million dollar tank, and the Commonwealth will issue them a permit to carry, but the college wont honor it. Getting a permit is harder than one thinks, and the students who would obtain it are the least likely to be the law breakers.
The number of people who are concealed-carry certified is statistically too low that there's any real chance they'd be in a classroom in which a shooting occurs--unless the CC-holder is the shooter. I don't know how that professor got the seven-times-more-law-abiding statistic. That sort of thing is very hard to measure, especially since you can't quantify someone's upstandingness. You either obey the law or not. In any case, the shooter at NIU was "law-abiding." He'd only ever had a speeding ticket. He was subjected to background checks and raised no red flags. Can't we just accept that occasionally people do irrational things? Putting guns in more people's hands will only increase the damage that can be done at those irrational moments. You can't injure sixty people (as at VT) or kill thirty-two with a baseball bat. Unless you're in the coma ward, maybe.
Carry on campus isn't just about "kids", it's about young adults, and taking personal responsibility for your own safety just like having a smoke detector or wearing your seatbelt. And it's not just about students, it's about faculty and staff, you know all those mature adults who are apparently trustworthy enough to educate the students.