Guns on campus: the great debate
A debate that seems to pop up each time a school shooting occurs is back in the news this week, thanks to a group of UW students. The raging topic of discussion? Whether students should be allowed to carry guns on college campuses.
A piece from the P-I details a group of students who are wearing empty gun holsters around campus to make a political statement:
As much as we like to think of a school as a safe zone, it's not safe," said Brian Yip, who heads up the UW's chapter of Students for Concealed Carry on Campus.
I couldn't agree more with Yip, whose group has 25,000 members and counting nationwide.
While most college campuses say "no way" to the proposal, the idea that not allowing guns on campus is a victory for students safety seems to have gone by the wayside in recent years. It's become clear that folks who want to carry guns on to campuses will, and the results will be devastating if everyone is prepared.
Perhaps the best example to highlight a need to pack heat on campus comes, ironically, from Virginia. In 2002, a disgruntled student at Appalachian Law School killed the dean, a professor, and a student. When he exited the building, presumably looking for more victims, two other students were waiting with guns (which they had retrieved from their cars) and managed to take him down.
If responsible and sane students (with the proper licenses and permits of course) had been able to stay strapped on campus at Virginia Tech, one has to believe the rampage there would have been less devastating. If anything could ruffle the feathers of a coward like Seung-Hui Cho, it's a taste of his own medicine.
The argument may have held little bearing in the years before V-Tech and the February massacre at Northern Illinois University, as college campus shootings were up until that point a uncommon trend. But, as they so often tend to do, times have changed. If we continue operating under the backwards assumption that preventing responsible citizens from carrying guns is good for society, we shouldn't be surprised when the school shootings continue to have devastating impacts.
It's like the old saying goes: "outlaw guns, and only outlaws will carry them." On a college campus, that makes racking up a body count as easy as shooting fish in a barrel.
