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Students With Concealed Weapons: Worst Idea Ever

FRIDAY APRIL 25 2008 4:00 PM

Submitted by coyotemike. Edited By crispy.

TAGS: Guns, concealed weapons, gun bills

There is the possibility of a frightening new trend on the horizon for college campuses around the country. I'm not talking about a new hazing ritual, worsening cafeteria conditions, or making students scrub the toilets in their dorms. This is much, much worse.

Ever since the terrible shootings just over a year ago at Virginia Tech, some students and parents have been calling on schools to allow students to carry concealed weapons on campuses.

Fox News . . . (not that I recommend watching Fox News)

This has to be one of the worst ideas in history, for a number of reasons:

1. To get a concealed carry permit in any state, the person has to be 21. Which, coincidentally, is the same as the legal drinking age. It has been my experience as a student, an instructor, and as someone who lives within three blocks of every college bar in town, that most students have a tendency to hit the sauce a bit hard when they first become legal. This is not the ideal conditions for allowing someone access to firearms.

2. College students often show dramatic lapses in judgment. Not all students, obviously, but enough that even one student who decides to do something stupid could have deadly results

3. The purpose of the movement is to provide some form of defense against a hypothetical attacker. I�m sorry, but I simply cannot see students being able to react in a manner that is safe to the innocents in a situation and providing actual deterrent to an attacker. If they didn�t manage to shoot themselves in the foot, they would very likely panic and fire blindly in the general direction of an attacker, which could be very deadly to any bystanders who might be in the same general area.

The day after the Virginia Tech attack, I was listening to the local morning conservative talk radio idiots, and the sheer number of calls coming in from parents was frightening. There were several different versions, but they all said about the same thing, dramatically paraphrased here:

�My son (never daughter) woulda shot that sum-bitch dead, and I knows cuz I taught him to shoot tin cans.�

To make matters worse, one of the people that sold the guns to the Virginia Tech shooter is trying to defend his actions in a visit to that campus. (Turns out this online gun seller also supplied some extras to the nut who shot people in Northern Illinois University)

There are plenty of sane things students, faculty, and campuses can do to protect students. They could replace the windows in classroom doors with �bulletproof� glass; they can practice drills like they do with fires and tornadoes; they can set up a campus-wide alert system; they can even set up a lock system so that, if someone pushes a panic button or types in a code, all doors would lock until the all-clear had been given. Yes, they are expensive measures, but they could easily be paid for by the tuitions of the students who weren�t shot.

If a gun kept at home is more likely to end up hurting a family member than an intruder, how much more likely is a gun on a college campus going to be used incorrectly than to stop an attacker in an emergency.

Campuses do not need armed wannabe cowboys with delusions of heroism and grandeur. They need trained security, workable safety plans, working communications, and good screenings of potential students instead of the business-like �we�ll take anyone with money� attitude that so many schools have.

Coyotemike is a part-time college professor, and will resign the day his campus allows students to carry concealed weapons.

555 Comments

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coyotemike

Tuvalu

May 2006

APR 25, 2008 06:01 PM

Fixer said:

coyotemike said:

No, and thank you for completely missing the point. I'm using a lifetime of experiance to try to prove that without extensive combat-shooting training, people would very likely make lethal errors.

you use "likely" a lot. 21 yr old students are likely to be out of control drunks. Armed citizens are very likely to make lethal errors. Must be nice to be so conveniently sure of oneself and your ability to predict everyone else's behaviour.

The adrenaline rush that one gets when confronted with a dangerous situation has very different effects in everyone. There's no "likely" how someone is going to react. You say "likely" to help prove your own point, as if you were a likelihood expert. Just because you doubt your own ability to stay calm under a stressful situation does not make it more likely that everyone else will react the same way.

Ok. From now on I'll use the words "greater possibility than I am comfortable with".

And you're right, people react to stressful sitiuations differently. I can only hypthesize from observing college students during the past 12 years (including the time when I was a student) and their reactions to the stress of being in college.

What would you suggest as a method to keep students safe?

DevilsReject

Cleveland, OH

February 2007

APR 25, 2008 06:02 PM

someone is missing the point.

bald_eagle

Indianapolis, IN

November 2006

APR 25, 2008 06:08 PM

abbazappa said:

Also this debate is not about if college students should be able to have a concealed hand gun or not but rather if they have the right to have it on college campuses.

I think the discussion is clearly whether they should, not whether they have the right. Whether they have the right is a legal question.

Nor has any one with a concealed pistol has been convicted of murder ...

Where do you get this stuff?

On June 5, 1998 concealed handgun license holder Jack Reynolds was charged with murder after he shot and killed his next-door neighbor, Julian Rioz. The Dallas Police reported that Rioz and several other people were at a party at Reynolds' home when a fight broke out over a woman present at the party. Police said Mr. Reynolds retrieved his handgun from his pocket and as Rioz was walking home shot his pistol in the air. Rioz taunted the man and told him if he was going to shoot him he should come closer and do it. Reynolds crossed the yard and at point blank range shot his neighbor once in the chest. According to the Dallas Police Department, Reynolds had spent his pension check on beer and drugs for the party, and was drunk at the time of the shooting. Witnesses related that Reynolds was known for shooting his weapon into the air for no reason. At the time of the trial, Reynolds told the jury that he was too drunk and drugged to remember what happened. Reynolds was convicted of murder in January 1999 and sentenced to 10 years probation.source

That's just one of many examples given at the cited source. Some of them technically weren't convicted because they died at the scene of the shooting.

strndniowa

Grimes, IA

May 2007

APR 25, 2008 06:17 PM

Ideally guns do not belong on any University or College campus!
They certainly do not belong in a High School.
When I went to Iowa, University Police had the same authority, and much of the same training as a State Trooper, yet they didn't have guns...
If that hasn't changed yet, it will have to fairly soon, and I think that is a shame
I can see no possible good results from any students on a campus of any sort carrying firearms with them to class...and I feel across the board there needs to be a very good reason for any concealed weapons permit to be issued...
Guns do not belong in schools in the hands of either students or teachers...
The ideal of them not belonging there at all is pretty much gone, but come on here...Is this the old Dodge City- or an institute of higher learning?
(the MIT boot hill sound like a good idea to anybody?)

abbazappa

Los Osos, CA

June 2006

APR 25, 2008 06:18 PM

bald_eagle said:

abbazappa said:

Also this debate is not about if college students should be able to have a concealed hand gun or not but rather if they have the right to have it on college campuses.

I think the discussion is clearly whether they should, not whether they have the right. Whether they have the right is a legal question.

Nor has any one with a concealed pistol has been convicted of murder ...

Where do you get this stuff?

That's just one of many examples given at the cited source. Some of them technically weren't convicted because they died at the scene of the shooting.

where i got that was from the video that was originaly provided, so i will change it to that the amount of people convicted of murder with a concealed weapon permit is vastly less on average.