No Guns on Campus; The Rebuttal

For my blog entry 6 I have chosen and article ““ No Guns on Campus”” from the student blog ““ Government for the People 2011””. Whereas the article makes some points, it is purely an emotional stance with no supporting evidence presented. The author, through their use of language, makes it clear this an opinion article and everyone is entitled to their opinion.

I will be presenting an opposing view. This is another area where, though being a moderate in general, I swing solidly to the right and I am fully in support of allowing concealed weapons on college campuses if the gun owner has a concealed weapon permit.

Speaking from my own personal experience, I attended a small rural High School in the 1980’s that quite literally was loaded with guns. If you looked into the parking lot, almost every pickup and a lot of cars had at least a .22 or a shotgun at minimum. Many were fully decked out with a .22 for varmints, High power hunting rifle, Shot gun, and sometimes even a hand gun; even though they were widely regarded as inaccurate and useless. The point is that during my entire time there, not a single one of those weapons were brandished. The owners were brought up around weapons, trained in their use from a young age and taught to respect them. If there was a fight, you fought, you either won or lost, and you never thought “I’m going to go get my gun”. Guns can safely be in an academic environment if the owners are responsible.

Also speaking from personal experience, I have been involved in a shooting incident. A co-worker was driving a tractor in a field where I was also working and someone they knew walked into the field and blasted a shotgun right into their abdomen. We immediately retrieved our rifles and stood at the ready with the truck as cover. If we had not had our weapons, they could have easily have decided not to leave any witnesses. As it stood, we had equal or greater firepower and a defensive position. The perpetrator did not threaten us, fled the scene and was later arrested. Despite the adrenalin of the situation we did not fire a shot because our gun culture and training said you only fire if directly threatened and a show of force prevented that.

Having established that background, I will now address the article. The author’s first elaboration comes in the first paragraph where they say, “I would support a higher level of a security force on our campuses verses an 18 year old or anyone having a concealed hand gun on campus”. The author also makes a reference to maturity thus implying that we would be handing our kids a HS diploma, handgun and sending them off to school. This shows an ignorance of the proposal in question and a lack of research by the author. In Texas you must be 21 to own a handgun or get a concealed permit and the process includes a full background check, even a Class A misdemeanor disqualifies you. You must prove proficiency with the weapon and read and know the laws concerning the use of deadly force. The process takes up to 60 days so there cannot be a “in the heat of the moment” permit. If you purchase the gun from a licensed dealer, you must also pass a federal check with a mental health element and a waiting period. Just the age restriction alone would limit most permits to the late junior or most likely senior grade level, older students or professors. “ Texas Gun Laws”

By comparison, we take 18 year olds into military boot camp, train them for 9 weeks, only a small portion of which is weapon training, and after completing their MOC they can be sent off into battle with weapons many times deadlier and accurate than a handgun and are considered to be mature enough to know when they can and cannot use them.

The second fallacy of this is that quite simply, the police cannot protect you in a gun situation, they can only respond to one after it is in progress. This may be a matter of minutes if they are close, but those are some very precious minutes. 32 people died at the Virginia Tech massacre and many more were wounded before police were able to take down the gunman. If someone in a nearby classroom had had a concealed weapon that might have only been 20, or 10, or 5. Theoretically, if the 5th person had had a handgun, and even if 2 more people died in the cross fire, that would still have made 7 dead instead of 32. Even if that person only managed to wound the perpetrator before dying them self it could have stopped the massacre.

The Gunman, Cho, was not a concealed permit holder. He was a mentally erratic student that was ignored by the campus authorities despite repeated complaints about him. The lesson learned from the Virginia Tech incident is NOT that we need gun control; it is that we need a better mental health system.
“ Virginia Tech massacre”

In almost every case where firearms are restricted, gun crimes increase because it disarms only the law abiding citizens and criminals do not get their guns legally nor follow the laws on their use. That is why we call them criminals. A 1997 survey of more than 18,000 prison inmates found that among those serving time for a violent crime, "30% of State offenders and 35% of Federal offenders carried a firearm when committing the crime." Yet, A 1982 survey of convicted felons in 11 states found that almost 40% had decided not to commit a crime because they "knew or believed that the victim was carrying a gun”. “Gun Control Facts”

It is true that “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people”. And if I had my choice, I would prefer the gun to be in the hands of a law abiding and permit holding citizen.