Guns on campus? Expect tragedy

[jpak]

http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/03/08/etzioni.guns.in.school/

<snip>

One might say, "But surely we will not give guns to these guys." A test that allows one to reliably determine who can be trusted with a gun and who cannot, however, does not exist. And if it were ever created, I expect the National Rifle Association and various state legislatures would strenuously oppose submitting millions of students and professors, or anyone else, to such a test before they could purchase a firearm.

Not that I want "stable" students to carry guns. I have used firearms in close-range combat, but only after extensive training. And I still saw quite a few of my fellow combatants miss their targets and wind up with their bullets flying all over the place. This also happened with more of mine than I care to admit. If students are going to fire at intruders in their classroom, I'll bet my last dollar that they will bring down more of their friends than they will gunslingers. As for the professors, I have spent a lifetime among them. Trust me: Most of them come from the gang that can't shoot straight.

Worse, long before anyone storms into a classroom, some students will use their guns -- when their anger boils over, when they have one drink too many or their girlfriend makes out with someone else -- to shoot someone. And then there are those who die from an accidental firing of a gun -- on average, more than 700 Americans died each year from gun accidents between 1999 and 2007.

What should be done? Make guns less accessible, not more.

<more>

right on

yup

[Hoopla Phil]

1. There is an entire state that allows collage carry. What problems have there been?

[rl6214]

6. Better correct that spelling error

before jpak jumps on you for it. It's the only arguement she's got, other than feelings.

[Hoopla Phil]

9. Oops. I guess a miss spelling gets by every once in a while. It's

interesting the jpak cannot give at least on example that supports his claim.

[WatsonT]

15. lalalalalala can't hear you!

NRA . . . .GOP . . . . blood in the streets . . . yup yup yup yup

[lawodevolution]

2. you still have not showed us how CCW on the campuses that already allow it causes problems

you still have zero data and zero fact to back anything against CCW on campus

On the other hand there are plenty of school shootings at no gun zones where a CHL would have come in handy and several mass shootings that were stopped by armed civilians.

[Ken_Fish]

3. Be sure to unload your gun before using it to "shotgun"

bong hits. The tragedy from this act will kill thousands next year. Mark my words..

[speltwon]

4. More baseless conjecture that runs contrary to established facts

as seen on the numerous campuses in states that allow CCW on campus.

[rl6214]

5. He wrote a book so his opinion means

DIDDLY-SQUAT

[krispos42]

7. Lots of patronizing there, describing in dire terms...

...what has existed since the invention of the firearm.

"Oh, oh, some people will do bad things with them in a fit of rage!"

Yeah, well...

With 80 million gun owners in the country, letting the tiny sliver of the population that is:

In college;
AND age 21+;
AND has a clean criminal record;
AND wants to spend the time and money getting a CCW permit;
AND wants to spend the money owning and getting familiar with a handgun

is just adding a tiny fraction to those 80 million current gun owners.

In fact, I bet for a lot of them they'll already be carrying, just not on campus. So a handful of people spend a handful more hours per day carrying a concealed pistol.

Big whup.

[GreenStormCloud]

8. Wasn't this same sort of stuff predicted when a state went "shall-issue?

Yep. It was. And it didn't happen. violent crime dropped. Same thing will happen for colleges. Sky won't fall.

[PavePusher]

10. Any fucking day now, amIright?

Go beat another horse, this one is past it's "Best By..." date.

[Remmah2]

11. PhD math majors need guns on campus.

How else to study trigonometry?

yup

[Tuesday Afternoon]

12. guns have always been on campus. you have been unaware and thus

unafraid. now that you are aware, however........

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

13. Having guns on campus will improve Engineering students taking "Dynamics" Courses

Nothing quite like real-world demonstrations of 3-Dimensional Rigid Body Motion, Free-Fall Ballistic Trajectory and Spin-Induced Stabilization!

Maybe we can even get the Pre-Med students some fresh GSWs and Cadavers to work on!!!

:sarcasm:

[WatsonT]

14. I think you missed the part where this is an "Opinion" piece

rather than anything factual.

[Euromutt]

16. Long on conjecture and irrelevancies, short on evidence

In citing the examples of Virginia Tech, NIU and UAH, Etzioni blithely overlooks the fact that the shooters were already prohibited from bringing firearms onto campus, and that this didn't stop them for a second. Permitting CCW on campus isn't going to facilitate any undesirable incidents, because those were already perfectly capable of occurring anyway; the evidence of that is that they did occur, in spite of prohibitions of firearms on campus.

As for his dire predictions of CCWing students and faculty putting lead everywhere but into an "active shooter," well, we'll never know until we try, will we? What we do know is that keeping students and faculty disarmed hasn't prevented a single college shooting and has deprived the victims of the most effective means to defend themselves. I don't know exactly what Mr. Etzioni's combat experience is (presumably in the IDF), but I notice that what he does not say is that those bullets he and his fellow soldiers fired that missed their intended targets instead struck others on their own side. Probably because they didn't.

Worse, long before anyone storms into a classroom, some students will use their guns -- when their anger boils over, when they have one drink too many or their girlfriend makes out with someone else -- to shoot someone.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, blood will flow in the quadrangles, just like they were going to flow in the streets and in the National Parks. I guess Mr. Etzioni never heard the tale of the boy who cried "wolf."