Shouldn’t College Students be Allowed to Arm Themselves?
“there remains an opportunity at the state and local level to empower college students to defend themselves”
Gun free zones make people vulnerable and defenseless. Isn’t that a recipe for disaster?
John Patrick writes at the Washington Examiner:
In the wake of more mass shootings, it’s time to end ‘gun free zones’ on campus
It’s time to revisit the campus carry debate.
Tragic mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, have once again ignited an intense public debate over how to prevent further acts of senseless violence. While debates over federal gun regulations are unlikely to provide any substantial solutions to this problem, there remains an opportunity at the state and local level to empower college students to defend themselves.
Currently, there are 12 states that respect a student’s right to carry a firearm on a public campus, with exceptions for certain campus buildings and events. While many students and faculty initially harbored concerns that such laws would lead to increased shootings and violence on campus, time has shown that campuses where students are allowed to carry actually sometimes experience decreases in violent crime.
Take the state of Kansas as an example.
In 2016, students were given the right to concealed carry of firearms on public college and university campuses throughout the state. Initially, faculty and administrators across the state were vehemently opposed to the new law — roughly 50% of those surveyed worried campus carry would lead to an increase in violent crime on campus.
However, just one year later, an analysis from the University of Kansas Police Department showed that despite initial concerns, overall crimes on campus actually declined by 13% from 2016 to 2017. Additionally, crimes of a violent nature decreased substantially during that same time period, including as 50% decrease in assaults on campus, along with a 66% decrease in robberies and burglaries as well.
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Comments
I’ve always questioned the rationality of laws which prohibit easy targets from defending them. Young women, ages 18-21 are placed in the most vulnerable position possible. They are most likely living away from home where family members can assist in their defense for the first time. They are most likely living in some form of communal housing that is easily accessed by anyone planning to commit a violent act.
They are often required to reside with a person they have no familiarity with and their guests.
They frequently travel cross country to return home to visit family (my girls were 700 miles from home through country with emergency response times exceeding an hour) across long stretches of isolated highways.
They frequently own older less reliable transportation or no transportation at all which requires walking, biking, public transportation, sharing rides or using Uber.
They are often befriended by individuals who with questionable backgrounds that are unknown in their “new town”.
University class requirements often require practicals and observations in high crime areas.
Campus Parking restrictions frequently require walking alone across campus at odd hours.
I could go on, but you’ve got the idea
All of my own children carried while they were in college (prior to Texas adopting Campus Carry). We decided expulsion from a university was less important than them lacking a means to defend themselves.
You are a good mother!
“Shouldn’t College Students be Allowed to Arm Themselves?”
According to the Constitution, if they are of age, they ARE allowed to arm themselves. If something is stopping them, then their right has been unconstitutionally infringed.
I don’t understand how anyone could be so stupid as to think that a gun-free zone will make people safer. Do they really think that a psychopath intent on mass murder will be stopped by a “Gun-Free Zone” sign?
They seem to think he’ll say “Oh crap! I can’t take my gun in there and kill everyone, so maybe I’ll just go back home.” I suspect he’s more likely to look for a gun-free zone to commit mayhem, because he’s more likely to kill more people before he encounters armed resistance.
It’s not just the lunacy of “if we declare it gun-free, there will be no more guns.” It’s also the lunacy that law-abiding citizens will suddenly become homicidal maniacs because they have a gun in their possession.
The left really has dropped reason in exchange for magical thinking – guns are totems that awaken the inner demon.
(Except, of course, for the special people who wield them for the state. They don’t have any inner demons.)
You misunderstand. Gun control’s lack of results, or even counter-productive results, is not a bug, it’s a feature. First, those presenting “solutions” to gun violence aren’t actually interested in providing solutions. If they were, they would consider solutions other than gun control. But they don’t and can’t for fear that alternate solutions might prove efficacious, and then their (actual) agenda would go nowhere. Second, they don’t want their own solutions to work. They want them to fail. Because in the end, they want to be able to throw up their hands and admit thousands of gun control laws did nothing. And right about then, they’ll propose their own “final solution,” a complete ban on firearms and confiscation. Only when one considers the goal can one understand the means, because obviously, the means aren’t aimed at the publicly-stated goal (reduction of gun violence).
You forget that you are dealing with Liberals, most of whom have the emotional maturity of a four year old.
I myself have scads of guns and other potentially dangerous “arms,” and fully support the right of any other American to do the same, with obvious exceptions—criminals, the insane . . . and juveniles.
To the extent that college students are juveniles, I’m not enthusiastic about any sort of arms. Of course at that age they grow up quickly. Maybe no arms for freshmen, and anything goes for everyone else. On the other hand, the right for everybody is far preferable to the right for none.
I have a shooting sports team with 92 youth on it (18,000) statewide. The are proficient in archery, rifle, pistol, shotgun, muzzleloaders and as well as a specific category for revolvers and lever action rifles.
I’ve been doing this for 20 years with zero accidents, injuries or improper handling. Juvenilles with firearms training and practice don’t bother me, kids who’ve been raised to fear guns and everything they know comes from video games does bother me.
And again…. consider your tiny freshman daughter driving 700 miles across largely rural highways. I’d rather defend her right to be armed and able to defend herself, than her trying to outrun an attacker who probably is armed. At the very least, she will have a fighting chance.
Oh hell yes.
Fact is, we all have the right to carry. Second amendment restricts gubbermint. Get rid of 2nd amendment doesn’t change my right to carry. Inalianable rights ya know?