Concealed Carry on Campus Round Up

Concealed Carry on campus round-up. A little frisking perhaps.

From Lehigh University:

"I hope that the overall risk felt by students on campus never reaches a level where Lehigh feels it is necessary to allow concealed handguns on its campus," Katy Kuttner, '10, said.

Marie Brown '10, said weapons on campus would pose a security threat.

"A student could potentially use the concealed weapon to harm another student, even though the handguns are intended to defend oneself or another," Brown said.

"It is too controversial for Lehigh to adopt this idea as a policy," Brown said. "The intentions are for the overall safety of students, however, it could lead to injury or death, a risk too harsh to take on."

Kuttner, I hate to be the one to break some bad news to you, but the overall risk to students is already there, even if you don't feel the risk. And the whole point of allowing concealed carry on campus is to create real safety, instead of tricking everyone into feeling safe. People who hold a concealed carry permit are, statistically, the most law-abiding group of people in the country. You have nothing to fear from us, and if anything, carrying a firearm makes me more polite, and more aware of what I am saying and doing.

And Ms. Brown, I hate to inform you, but everything you do carries some risk, and can lead to injury or death. As far as students potentially using someone on the campus to harm or kill another student, yes, it could happen, but firearms are not the only thing that fits that mold. If you're planning on enacting bans on all things that could be used to harm a student on campus, then you wouldn't have a college to go to. Everything on campus can be a weapon, everything!

Allowing students to be armed on campus simply equals the playing field between the bad guys and the good guys!

From Harvard

While the fear and frustration that gives rise to such an attitude is understandable, the idea of promoting safety by allowing more people to have guns simply defies logic.

It only defies logic because you want it to defy logic. If you actually sit down and look at the facts, and make a logical decision, allowing concealed carry on campus is the best way to make the campus as a whole safer. Every shall issue state in the country has seen a decrease in the violent crime rate after the passage of the concealed carry laws, while states that have no concealed carry provisions, or very restrictive ones, have continued to see a rise in violent crime. The reason: criminals fear an armed victim, who might fight back. That means, that even if you don't want to carry a firearm, you're safer because someone else on the street might have one.

While a gun owner might be a completely responsible, law-abiding citizen, those around him may not share the same moderation or restraint, and the lack of a secure, safe space on campus results in a potential risk to all.

If the gun owner is responsible and law abiding, then where does the "lack of secure, safe space" come from? If concealed carry on campus were done correctly, there would be no reason for the firearms to be out of the direct control of the owner unless that owner was asleep. In which case, that firearm will be close to hand at night. Again, there is no danger in having an inanimate object laying around, it's no different the having a knife, or even a stapler sitting on your desk.

Guns on campus, however, bring that very danger into the midst of a student’s living environment.

No they don't. Not unless they are possessed by people who will not use them the right way. Those are not the people with a concealed carry permit!

From The Badger Herald

The part of this article that bothered me the most was that they ended the article with this quote which definitely has an anti-gun bias:

“More guns on campus will not equal more safety,” Bonavia said.

I'd like to see facts that actually prove that particular quote out. It offends me, because I know it to be false.

Again from the Lehigh Article:

There are currently nine public universities in the state of Utah that allow for students to carry concealed handguns on campus. The universities have held this policy for almost two years without an incident.

9 public universities in Utah, 2 years, the blood should be running in the street. But it's not. They haven't had one incident involving a concealed carry permit holder, that's right, not one... and I'd be willing to bet that pattern will continue.

Marko once wrote: "The number of casualties at the site of an attempted mass shooting is usually determined by whether the gun used to stop the killer is already at the site, or whether it must be carried there in the holster of a police officer."

There is so much wisdom there, I can't even begin to describe it.