What if a state legislature proposed a
law to solve a problem that didn't exist, and students organized a
protest for shock value?
This seems to be the case with
concealed carry on United States' college campuses. Recently, Texas
became the newest state to force college administrators to accept
guns on campus when Governor Greg Abbot (who
believed President Obama was planning to invade Texas),
signed S.B.
11, also known as the campus carry law, on June 1st,
2015. The implementation began August 1st, 2016 as
students returned to college. Specifically the law requires colleges
in the state to allow students to carry a concealed handgun on
campus, including in lecture halls and dorms. The law also allows
colleges to fashion limited gun free zones, as long as those zones do
not, “generally prohibit or have the effect of generally
prohibiting license holders from carrying concealed handguns on the
campus of the institution.” Also, gun owners are always allowed to
leave their weapons a vehicle.
The United States needs more
restrictions on the ability to purchase guns. It needs to restrict
the types of weapons available for purchase and their modifications.
And while allowing guns on campus is ill advised as it transforms an
open area to one of possible danger, the counter protest of college
students illegally carrying sex toys to campus seems juvenile.
The Texas legislature provided two
reasons for pushing guns on campus. Number one (campus protection),
the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun from committing mass
murder is a good guy with a gun. And number one (personal
protection) the only thing that stops a bad guy from murdering me is
if I have a gun. Notice there's no distinct difference, this is a
college campus! The implication is cops and other weapon wielding
professionals might not respond swiftly enough neutralize an armed
criminal. In the legislatures mind, civilians need to be “the
first line of defense” against this omnipresent menace.
This is a myth, for two reasons.
First, in spite of the claim that mass
murdering psychopaths rampage through gun free zones, it appears the
assumption is incorrect. In 2015
there was only one mass shooting at a college: Umpqua Community
College in Roseburg, Oregon, which left nine wounded and nine dead.
Everytown
for Gun Safety, a pro-gun control organization, reviewed FBI
statistics and found only thirteen percent of mass shootings occur in
gun free zones.
This concealed carry law in Texas is
designed to allow weapon carrying civilians to prevent a shooter from
taking advantage of unarmed college students hanging out on the quad
or going to class. As all former college students realize, there is
no need for guns to prevent everday crime. There isn't gun related
crime on campuses. Yet, mass shootings (which again, rarely occur in
gun free zones) only account for less
than one percent of all firearm related homicides. Texas
passed a law to allow guns on campus to prevent thirteen percent of
one percent of all gun homicides in the United States. And there are
financial costs to be discussed further down.
Gun violence is a serious problem in
parts of the United States. Republicans refuse to acknowledge this
fact, which is unforgivable because the most
gun violence, per capita, occurs in states with Republican
legislatures, Congressmen, and Governors. The difference between
Massachusetts (3rd best per capita homicide by firearm at
3.2 per 100,000) compared to Louisiana (2nd worst at 19.0
per 100,000) is unbelievable. And yet, Democrats fail to confront
the serious issue of gun violence when they become a hysterical mob
after each mass shooting. Instead of focusing on mass shootings and
what can be done to prevent them, they need to mobilize and craft
actual gun control legislation, targeting everyday gun violence.
But aside from the fact that the law
won't stop any gun homicides, because there really aren't any
happening on campus, there's also the problem that civilians armed
with weapons don't end up stopping mass shootings either. According
to FBI statistics complied by the Huffington
Post, only four percent of the one hundred and sixty mass
shootings between 2000 and 2013 resulted in a civilian shooting the
mass murder. Instead, thirteen percent of shooters were restrained
by unarmed civilians.
Police officers train and risk their
life. They still end up wounded or dead, and sometimes harm innocent
people in chaotic situations. No one should believe untrained
civilians will do better. They will do much worse. Armed civilians
can also be targeted by police if they are mistaken for the active
shooter.
So the reasons for allowing concealed
carry on campus, including classes and dorms, is bunk. But the
reasoning behind the sex toy protest seems infantile and fallacious.
The arguments have been many; the cost
will be prohibitive, teachers will be unable to honestly debate with
students out of a fear of violence, and there will be more gun
violence on campus.
The reasoning of the phallus carrying
protesters: if guns are allowed on campus, then sex toys should be as
well. Currently the later is banned in Texas because of obscenity
laws, and activists claim sex toys are less dangerous than guns,
therefore they should be allowed. Their logic looks like this: Guns
are weapons. Weapons are dangerous. College campuses need to be
safe so students can learn. Therefore all dangerous objects not
directly related to school should be prohibited. Sex toys are not
dangerous. Therefore they should be allowed on college campuses.
But the last statement doesn't follow
from the ones proceeding it. Colleges don't need to allow all 'safe'
items just because they're safe.
It's a mocking, shocking, look at me
protest that doesn't matter. And why? Because the effects of
conceal carry aren't as obvious as the protesters claim.
To begin, the cost
of all Texan public universities allowing concealed carry was
estimated in 2015 to be forty million dollars over six years, but the
current estimates for this year are about one million. Half of the
cost was for signs, which won't need to be replaced each year. There
are better uses in education for one million dollars, but considering
Texas spends over twenty-two
billion on its higher ed, a million isn't going to
significantly impact the outcome.
Secondly, while professors may be
initially wary of possible packing individuals, it is no different
then the reaction the public has for a time after a mass shooting.
For a time civilians are nervous, but soon other issues intervene and
life goes on. As a former high school teacher, each school shooting
across the country induced a sudden dose of fear. But a week later,
all the classes, papers, and learning has left no room for worry.
Especially when one realizes its an isolated event that is about as
likely as winning the lottery.
And finally, mass shootings don't occur
as a significant number, and they don't occur commonly in gun free
zones. It just feels like they do. And allowing concealed carry on
campus is not going to create an epidemic of students shooting their
teachers. This law won't results in campus related homicides,
because seven states already allow concealed carry on their college
campuses: Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Mississippi, Oregon, Utah and
Wisconsin, but there isn't a constant flow of shooting sprees. If
there was, it would be in the news.
College campuses are not the place for
guns: they are not needed and provide no benefit. They may have some
unknown and detrimental effect, but their prior institution in seven
other states without obvious effect belies this claim. At the very
least they may change the character of the educational setting. But
at the same time, the hysteria surrounding their introduction is no
more worthy of recognition.
In conclusion, the United States needs
to deal with its real problem of gun violence for those who suffer as
an every day part of life. Republicans need to admit it's happening,
Democrats need to stop politicizing mass shootings which are
unrelated, and both sides need to stop making gun control a purity test,destroying any chance of rational discourse.
Comments
Post a Comment