Article from NYT re Guns on Campus
This just sounds crazy to me...I remember a few weeks ago when I heard that the Texas Legislature was considering a bill to allow concealed hand guns on public college campuses (sounds like the perfect mix: intoxicated and emotionally developing college students with deadly weapons). I thought, this can't be real. I was surprised to learn a number of states already allow concealed hand guns. The given rationale is that professors and students are sitting ducks for the next attack from a crazed gun man (a la the shooting at Va Tech). This is a sorry rationale---if protection from a crazed gun man is the purported goal, why limit the right only to students who are older than 21? Are students who are younger than 21 not entitled to protection? (I don't believe that, I just throw that argument out to show the weakness in the argument). A law allowing concealed handguns on campus can only do more harm than good.
I know what the US Supreme Court has said about the right to "bear arms" (that its not necessarily related to or connected to service in the militia), but I think that the our policy makers should consider why the US has the highest level of deaths with from guns then any other industrialized nation? Proponents of the right to carry guns always speak to their Constitutional Rights, but those rights are not absolute and do not exist in a vacuum. The rights of the individual must always be balanced against those of the larger society (for example, an often cited example is that the First Amendment doesn't give anyone the right to shout fire in a crowded movie theater).
I just hope cooler (and more rationale minds prevail), but I doubt it.
This just sounds crazy to me...I remember a few weeks ago when I heard that the Texas Legislature was considering a bill to allow concealed hand guns on public college campuses (sounds like the perfect mix: intoxicated and emotionally developing college students with deadly weapons). I thought, this can't be real. I was surprised to learn a number of states already allow concealed hand guns. The given rationale is that professors and students are sitting ducks for the next attack from a crazed gun man (a la the shooting at Va Tech). This is a sorry rationale---if protection from a crazed gun man is the purported goal, why limit the right only to students who are older than 21? Are students who are younger than 21 not entitled to protection? (I don't believe that, I just throw that argument out to show the weakness in the argument). A law allowing concealed handguns on campus can only do more harm than good.
I know what the US Supreme Court has said about the right to "bear arms" (that its not necessarily related to or connected to service in the militia), but I think that the our policy makers should consider why the US has the highest level of deaths with from guns then any other industrialized nation? Proponents of the right to carry guns always speak to their Constitutional Rights, but those rights are not absolute and do not exist in a vacuum. The rights of the individual must always be balanced against those of the larger society (for example, an often cited example is that the First Amendment doesn't give anyone the right to shout fire in a crowded movie theater).
I just hope cooler (and more rationale minds prevail), but I doubt it.
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