It's back to school time again and college kids are heading to campuses across the country. If the National Rifle Association has its way, "packing" for college will have a whole new meaning. The NRA is working hard to force college and universities to allow students to carry guns in dorms and classrooms.
Of course, college administrators, faculty, students and campus security personnel agree that this is a crazy idea. But the NRA thinks it knows what's best for the safety of college communities. During the last four years, the gun lobby has pushed 65 bills in the legislatures of 32 states to require colleges to allow students to carry concealed weapons. Thus far, the NRA campaign has been an abject failure, even in "gun friendly" states like Texas, Arkansas and Arizona. But the gunners will be back, with the tactics of bullying and intimidation that have become their trademark.
Texas is an interesting case study. The NRA argues that allowing college kids to carry guns is essential for their safety, but Texas students, most of whom likely have grown up around guns, are loudly responding "no thank you". At the University of Texas in Austin, students have mobilized and demonstrated against guns on campus. In a referendum at Texas A&M, 57% of the student body voted against guns on campus. Presidential candidate Rick Perry, a former Aggie cheerleader, is a big fan of guns on campus, but his views are way out of step with his alma mater.
The mania surrounding this issue started with the Virginia Tech shooting of four years ago, with "gun rights" proponents arguing that if students had been carrying guns to class, they could have successfully resisted the shooter. But those students most qualified to assess this argument -- those who actually were under fire in the Virginia Tech classrooms -- have become crusaders against guns on campus. The Brady Campaign's Colin Goddard, who still carries parts of three bullets in his body from the Virginia Tech shooting, has visited campuses in every part of the nation to argue that more guns on campus would mean more death and injury. The compelling documentary, Living for 32, chronicles his transformation from French student to gun control activist.
Of course it is imaginable that a student with a gun could successfully defend against a campus killer, although other scenarios may be far more likely, such as a deadly crossfire taking even more lives, or the student who tries to draw his gun in defense becoming the first victim. The real problem is that in order to create any realistic chance of successful resistance by gun, there must be lots of students carrying lots of guns all over the campus -- in classrooms, dorm rooms, dining halls and sports arenas. Such a proliferation of guns and gun carrying introduces a panoply of new, everyday risks. For example, a student's protest of a low grade could turn violent, a depressed student could commit suicide with his roommate's gun, and a gun could discharge when it is accidentally dropped at a fraternity keg party. These kinds of shootings are far more likely to occur than a violent student entering a classroom intent on mass murder.
The pro-gun crowd assails college campuses as "gun-free zones" that allegedly leave students and faculty as sitting ducks, but the fact is that currently gun-free campuses are far safer than the rest of our gun-saturated country. The campus murder rate is 44 times lower than the general murder rate. Indeed, college students aged 18 to 24 experience violence at a 20% lower rate than non-students in the same age group. And 93% of the violence against students occurs off campus.
Recently, there was a frightening day on the Virginia Tech campus when young people attending a summer camp thought they had spotted a man with a gun crossing the campus. The University went into immediate lockdown, but no gunman was found. In the world of the NRA and Rick Perry, reports of a man carrying a gun on a university campus would be no cause for a lockdown, or any other action. It would be common behavior that the rest of us would just have to get accustomed to. We would have to wait for the shooting to start before anyone could intervene.
The vast majority of college students and their parents,have no interest in getting accustomed to kids carrying guns on campus. They will carefully pack the laptop, the books and the Ramen noodles. But, wisely, not the guns.
For more information, see Dennis Henigan's Lethal Logic: Exploding the Myths that Paralyze American Gun Policy (Potomac Books 2009). This and previous blogs are also posted at the Brady Campaign.
Most murders occur in high density, inner cities where guns are banned. The fact that higher education pretty much weeds out the criminal element isn't really mentioned by the author either. Beware the advocate for anything that uses emotion and narrowly selective or misleading data to make his case.
Why is it that Hennigan thinks that allowing guns on campus will lead to more crime when CCW permits allowed everywhere else in the country actually reduce crime? Does he think that somehow college students are more criminal in nature? More stupid?
Does he think we are stupid for buying into his line of Bullshit?
Written in 1974 by a teacher of political science and constituti¬onal law at Marquette University¬, Milwaukee, Wisconsin:
"In our already bullet-rid¬dled society, this summer's gun-down of Mrs. Martin Luther King, Sr., was more numbing than shocking. While it dramatized once more our need for gun legislatio¬n, the ritual responses to it were as rote as consoling words at the funeral of an aged cousin. Gun buffs once again fired off a round of dour warnings against hasty action ... So it goes. Thanks to the powerful opposition of the NRA, nothing will change.
The NRA blocks any reasonable solution ... The NRA fiercely stymies all efforts ... we can count on 25,000 gun deaths being committed this year (1974, now 32,000 in 2011). ... gun crimes cost taxpayers over $10 billion a year.(Agai¬n, 1974 dollars.) This does not include the private cost and anguish of accidents and suicides.
The NRA could promote realistic laws. It will not do so -- and this is its crime against the nation.
Father Paul J. Weber, S.J.
October 16, 1974
In the meantime, America is a democracy, and the NRA outnumbers the Brady Campaign 150 to 1.
http://conlaw-bloganon.blogspot.com
Talk about fear mongering.
Nevermind the fact that the number of deaths are half of what they are from the peak of gun control.
Hmm. You mean like when the Communications Director of the CSGV started posting names and personal information (ie work locations, state of residence, etc.) of pro-gun advocates promising to hold them 'accountable for their actions'?
Sad.
http://concealedcampus.org/common_arguments.php
Facts and reality still do trump emotionalism and hypotheticals, Dennis.
Care to provide an example of said bullying and intimidation?
57% is "loudly responding"? I wonder how many of those 57% are aware of the fact that campus carry has been in place in Utah and elsewhere for quite some time now without incident.
How many times has this happened with students who live and party off-campus, where students are generally allowed to have guns?
The campus murder rate is lower because campuses are generally flooded with relatively intelligent, affluent people.
How many reports were there of a man with a gun in Columbine or in the actual VA Tech massacre? That's right, none, because people who are planning to shoot lots of innocent victims generally understand that it's best to keep the gun hidden until "go-time".
The first is lawful gun ownership vs. violent crime rates for the UK:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dZsFx9Xa7iE/TmVVBotcQ3I/AAAAAAAAAAo/zhgZx6fFx6Q/s1600/GunOwnershipViolentCrimeEng.gif
Hint: They have 4x as much violent crime per capita as the US.
The next graph is the same thing for the US -- violent crime rate and lawful gun ownership vs. time for the land of the free and the brave.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5584ZjusUFI/TmVU6--Z0gI/AAAAAAAAAAg/CcJQYJc6nh0/s1600/violent-crime-rate-and-private-firearm-ownership-1981-2007.png
Hint: We've bought 90 million more guns since 1991, and violent crime is down 43% over the same period.
Bottom line? If you want to reduce crime, go after the root issues and leave the law abiding citizens their god-given and constitutionally-protected rights.
Read more: http://conlaw-bloganon.blogspot.com
If you can figure out a way to control guns that don't affect me and other productive, law-abiding citizens at all, be my guest. But anyone who fails at that faces the wrath of millions of votes at the national level. I don't want or need anyone making decisions about what guns I carry, who I marry, what health care I use, or what drugs I use.
Simple. It keeps the Joyce Foundation spigot in the "on" position.
Why could that be?
http://www.snowflakesinhell.com/2011/09/08/brady-exploiting-911-anniversary-for-political-gain/
There is no depth they won't go to to try and restrict people's rights.
Let our children be children.
"Statistics show that students are safer on campus than off, and college students are far more likely to be crime victims when they're away from campus. One reason legislators in most states have rejected guns-on-campus laws is probably because most were once college students themselves and can remember the binge drinking, drug taking and the bad judgment common at an age when science says brains haven't yet fully developed and the propensity for risky behavior is at its highest. The one state where college students are allowed to pack heat on public campuses statewide is Utah, where the influence of the Mormon church is strong and college drinking is lower than in other states."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2011-03-01-editorial01_ST_N.htm
These proposals deal with legal concealed carry by 21-and-over students, faculty, and staff ON CAMPUS. Since when have universities allowed "binge drinking and drug taking" ON CAMPUS?
Such activities, and "a fraternity keg party" mentioned by Dennis occur OFF CAMPUS. There is nothing stopping concealed carriers from being in the presence of such activity OFF CAMPUS now. The proposed laws would have no effect on what happens OFF CAMPUS.
This muddled and confused thinking by the anti-gun rights crowd demonstrates why they aren't taken seriously.
No one is proposing "children" should be allowed to legally carry concealed on campus. Only 21-year-old and older ADULT students, faculty, and staff who have already meet the legal requirements for concealed carry OFF campus.
For someone who likes reading history, that's pretty funny right there.
After allowing concealed carry on campus for a combined total of one hundred semesters, none of these twelve schools has seen a single resulting incident of gun violence (including threats and suicides), a single gun accident, or a single gun theft."
http://concealedcampus.org/common_arguments.php
Something bad will happen, and when it does there will be
an overwhelming demand for extensive gun control.
Sounds like you are almost hoping that "something bad will happen" to justify your position.
Anything is possible, but even if "something bad happens", when evaluated with perspective and objectivity it will seen to be the rare and isolated event that it is, based on years of experience so far.
There were hysterical predictions of "blood in the streets"© from the hand-wringers when shall-issue concealed carry policies became widespread. It didn't happen.
Now we have hysterical predictions of "a student's protest of a low grade could turn violent" and other nonsense, even though years of experience shows that doesn't happen.
Even the hysterical predictions of the drunken shootouts if concealed carriers were allowed to walk into bars hasn't happened. See "Gun crimes drop at Virginia bars and restaurants" http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/news/2011/aug/14/tdmain01-gun-crime-drops-at-virginia-bars-and-rest-ar-1237278/
These hysterical doomsday predictions haven't come true time and time again. Using phobia and hysteria to justify policy is ridiculous. The boy who cried wolf too many times lost all credibility, just as the anti-gun rights crowd has.
The only ones who are going to demand gun control are the people who are fearful of an inanimate piece of steel. Why are you so fearful, Frank?
With a gun-ban on campus, we're disarming faculty members, staff, older graduate students, and parents. It's OK if you don't trust the average 19-year-old with a handgun. He can't legally possess one anyway. But if his professor is a law-abiding citizen, can pass the background check, knowledge test, and practical shooting tests to get a permit, wouldn't you rather there be someone on site to protect?
The gun prohibitionists said that if we let people buy handguns, the streets would run with blood. Crime went down. They said that if we let citizens carry guns, it'd turn into the "wild west." Nope, crime went down. This past year, Virginia, permitted lawful weapons carriers into restaurants that serve alcohol, following the lead of a dozen other states. The gun prohibitionists swore the world would end. Crime went down.
The bottom line is that the facts, the constitution, and the will of the people is on our side. College campuses don't make a law-abiding person inherently more dangerous. Nor do restaurants that serve alcohol. The Brady Campaign will do anything to try to disarm people, but the facts always win.
Reference: http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/2011/aug/14/tdmain01-gun-crime-drops-at-virginia-bars-and-rest-ar-1237278/
Read more: http://conlaw-bloganon.blogspot.com