My state legislature is currently debating allowing concealed-carry permit holders to carry firearms on campus. Naturally the natives are now Restless. "And can you do SOMEthing about our legislature forcing this down our throats?" sniffed one solon at the last Faculty Senate meeting to the incoming board chairman. Every other conversation in the office inevitably brings the issue up. I suspect a coordinated effort on the part of some SuperSekrit Wacko Faculty-List: Journolist for the community college set.
My colleagues seem to believe that the second this happens, students are going to start bringing Glocks and Colts to class with them and twirling them like six-shooters. I'm trying to figure out if their fear is motivated out of an instinctual (viz., left-wing) fear of guns as a symbol of Authority; or a reflexive spasm against anything coming out of our Republican legislature.
Puh-lease. If you're worried about a student shooting you, CCL holders are probably at the bottom of your list of potential suspects. Most students cannot afford the training. And the ones who are angry enough to actually gun you down, probably aren't going to worry about if they're going to be ticketed for lacking a permit. They'll either ignore the law (funny how gun laws seldom actually stop crimes...) or wait for you to be off-campus. Virginia Tech: that poor crazy so-and-so didn't care about a permit. Professor Crazy What's-her-face at Alabama-Huntsville: didn't have a permit, still came to the department meeting with heat.
And not to put too fine a point on it, but we have guns on campus already, the students are just being very cool and even (!) responsible about them. They're not the ones I worry about. The day some hothead gets angry enough to shoot up a campus near me, I hope someone is capable of stopping him quickly and forcefully, and more often than not such stoppage is going to involve superior firepower. This is reality, however distasteful and ugly it may be.
(Note: I would not oppose requiring those CCL holders who actively carry to register with campus security, should they chose to actively carry while on-campus.)
Technorati Tags: academia, News I Can Use, guns, The world is full of morons, unintended consequences
3 comments:
At Northeast Lakeview Community College in 2008, a librarian shot another librarian. The former had a CHL. He was jealous.
We shouldn't have to bring protection to work. We definitely shouldn't have to bring it to school.
So the inference is that Librarian A would not have shot Librarian B had he not had a CHL? That's thin gruel. Individuals who are that upset are not going to abide by the letter of the law.
I can concede the "crime of passion" point, that Librarian A had motive and opportunity and found himself with means, all at precisely the wrong time. But who is to say that Librarian A would not have simply brought a large knife and stabbed Librarian B in the same jealous fit? Or used something handy at the time? It seems to be a slippery slope --and in Britain, that slope now includes many knives. Yet violent crime is increasing in their urban areas.
We have had CCL in this state for some time, with no significant increase in gun-related crime relating specifically to CCL-owners engaging in violent acts. (If there were, it'd be all over the news...) I don't see this as a giant issue.
--and thank you for your comment!
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