Posted by
Steve on Monday, February 06, 2012 4:30:53 PM
“Guns on Campus” is a hot political topic in Arizona and on my Community College Campus. I have received two emails on the topic today. For that reason, I felt it necessary to rebut some of the false information that has been put out by our Chancellor.
Our Chancellor is a staunch gun control person. He believes that if you control guns then there would be no gun crimes. In his statement to the press, he said that there is no evidence to suggest that allowing guns on campus will decrease the chance that someone will bring a gun on campus to commit a crime. I will agree that this topic has not been specifically addressed in any studies. That is because college administrators have kept all guns off of campuses and therefore the topic has not been allowed to be studied.
But, there is ample evidence to suggest that if guns were permitted for law abiding citizens that criminals would not bring guns on campus to commit crimes. In every city where there are concealed permits for the public, the crime rate is lower than those cities where concealed permits are difficult if not impossible to obtain. Places where you know there will be firearms, such as police departments, have no incidents of people attacking to commit crimes. Criminals are not stupid. If you know there is a place where there are no guns, you know you are safe to take a gun there and commit a crime. You may get caught when the police finally arrive in 5 minutes to an hour, but you have the original time to yourself.
One thing gun control laws do not do is stop criminals from having guns. Gun control laws keep law abiding citizens from having guns. Since law enforcement is almost always not present when they are needed, you have to be able to take care of yourself first. If you have no defense at all, you are subject to the whims of any criminal with a gun who decides to be stupid that day. Whether you live or die depends on whether the criminal decides to kill you. If you had some means of self-defense, you might have a chance to stop the criminal from taking another life. The life you save might be yours.
One thing that gun control people always worry about is that law abiding people will go crazy and we will have Wild West shootouts on the streets. That never happens. Why? Because concealed carry permits are given to people who go through training and know what to do with a gun. These people are serious and can hit the target they shoot at. They will not go wild and shoot people for no reason. The people with concealed carry permits are your best and brightest. They will act only if it is reasonable to act and it is within the law. To suggest otherwise is slanderous.
People who have concealed carry permits should be permitted to carry guns wherever they are. That means on a college campus or restaurant or wherever. There are too many stories of people with a gun who managed to save the situation because they were armed and knew what to do. NRA publications have these stories every time they are published.
Will allowing concealed carry permit holders to bring guns on campus stop all gun violence on campus? No. But, the number of people killed in the incident will be greatly reduced because they were there. Having people know that guns could be present is enough of a deterrent to keep most criminals from trying their hand at shooting up a college campus. The worst imaginations of the gun control nuts will never see the light of day if the legislation is passed. Our campuses will be safer and everyone will realize that the gun control people are just trying to control our behavior. They were not really trying to reduce violence on campus. That is just an excuse to control behavior. So far, they have been successful. Let’s get some common sense back into the discussion.