His point about stress was that college attendance is not only stressful, but (for many) the most stressful thing they have ever done.

fair enough. but it's also fair to point out that at 21, most students aren't walking into class on their first day. they've had 3-4 years to figure out how to handle that stress.

I feel people are ignoring the fact that some college campuses actually do have high crime rates. Wanting to protect yourself in the event of a killing spree is somewhat paranoid, but wanting to protect yourself from rapists, muggers, and drunk assholes seems to be why we allow people to carry concealed weapons in the first place.

Mace, self-defense classes, and common sense (don't walk around alone at night, let people know where you are, pay attention to situations) removes most of those dangers. I won't say all, because nothing will stop a determined person from causing damage. Letting students carry concealed weapons on campus wont' change that.

And each of those years is more stressful than the last.

Age requirement is not the only arguement against letting students carry weapons on campus. But I can admit that I may have used that point a bit heavily in my initial post. But that doesn't change the fact that the average student (as opposed to non-trads like your hypothetical 60 year old) are not mentally or emotionally mature enough to handle such situations with the eye towards safety and minimal damage.

How not?

(I won't quote the rest because it has already been dealt with.)

Mace and self-defense classes are really only good for protecting yourself from one attacker, compared to a gun which pretty much only needs to be taken out to scare any number of people away. Fire it in the air and you guarantee a police presence in moments. Fact is, even a gun with blanks in it is a better self-defense tool than any of the other things you may offer.

And yeah, letting anyone carry concealed weapons doesn't stop crime altogether. We still let people do it, though, because apparently it's okay to let people carry the means to defend themselves.

Unless they're college students.

does the situation somehow change when the action moves off the campus? again, your arguments are not relevant to the specific question of whether or not guns should be allowed on campuses. why should guns not be allowed on-campus, if they're allowed everywhere else?

as for each year being more stressful than the last, well, that's certainly an opinion. however, most colleges i've seen grant greater responsibilities and privileges to older students (eg, who gets picked for dorm administration jobs, who gets to drive, even who gets to live off-campus in some cases), which implies to me that older students are generally viewed as being capable of handling larger amounts of stress than younger ones.

i don't see anything special about attending college that makes a person more likely to mishandle a firearm, compared to a person who doesn't attend college. that's the main point i'm trying to get across--apparently, you do, and i'd like to explore what that might be.

assuming you mean "how is the lack of trustworthiness of 21 year-olds with regards to firearms not relevant to allowing students to carry on campus", well, see above--i don't see anything about going to / being at college that has any special bearing on the question of concealed carry rights. if a person can carry, they should be allowed to carry on or off campus.

The average student doesn't have a license to carry a concealed weapon, and the average student isn't going to get one simply because colleges have decided it's okay to carry guns now, with the proper license.

Shouldn't you be looking at people with concealed weapons permits rather than college students as a whole, then, for your ideas as to whether or not this is a bad idea? After all, they're the only people a ruling in their favor would affect.

I hate to say it, but that really is the wrong attitude for guns. If you are going to carry one, you do not take it out except for 3 reasons: cleaning/repair; practice; to kill. Shooting a gun into the air (provided it isn't a blank) just creates a high-speed projectile that will come back to earth randomly, possibly striking a person that has nothing to do with your confrontation.

The question at hand is carrying on campus. While I'm not a fan of college aged people carrying concealed anyway, (as can be seen in my previous posts) that cannot be stopped if the state sees fit to issue them a licence.

But a campus is no place for guns in the hands of anyone but trained security/police officers.

Alright, firing a gun into the air is a bad idea. Ideally you'd fire it straight into the ground, I guess.

That's probably the sort of thing a person with a permit would know.

Other than the reasons that have been beaten to death in this thread, and which everyone else seems to grasp, there is the fact that other than state-owned schools, colleges are private property, and if they don't want people carrying concealed, they can do so.

No, because the specific discussion is, should students be allowed to carry concealed weapons on campus.

The specific discussion is, should students who have the ability to carry concealed weapons elsewhere be able to do so on campus as well.

And I think students with those permits have more in common with other people who have these permits than they do with the average student, at least in regards to their ability to handle weapons wisely.

How can you disagree when the average student hasn't even held a gun before?

Meanwhile, since there are likely actual statistics stating how often concealed weapons are used accidentally or unlawfully, you can either prove or disprove your point about whether or not this is a bad idea rather than merely saying college students are mostly stressed and therefore liable to kill somebody and expecting us to take you at your word and never examine things any further than that.

given the amount of arguing going on in this thread, i'd say that there are a lot fewer people who 'grasp' the finer points of your logic than you appear to think. the only college-specific argument i've seen is the stress thing, which (in this thread at least) is largely based on anecdotal evidence provided by the guy whose no-guns-at-college article started the discussion in the first place. forgive me if i don't take it at face value.

private colleges are private property, and as such they certainly have the right to disallow pretty much whatever they want. i'm not arguing what those colleges can do, though. i'm arguing what they should do.