The burden of proof should be on those who support having guns on campus. Because, when all is said and done, madmen’s actions cannot be prevented.
How can Mr. Nathan reasonably expect the proponents of permitting CCW on campus to shoulder the burden of proof when he refuses to countenance permitting the one thing that could provide that evidence, namely permitting CCW on campus?
What we know is this: we've tried prohibiting guns on campus--in some jurisdictions by making it a criminal offense, in others by making it a disciplinary offense--and as far as we can tell, it hasn't prevented a single school shooting. At the very least, it has demonstrably failed to prevent, well, just about every single one that has occurred.
We do not know that "madmen's actions cannot be prevented" because you can't prove that something that
didn't happen
would have happened absent the preventive factor. Still, it's worth noting that
very few mass shootings (just about none, as far as I'm aware) have occurred on campuses in "shall issue" states that permit permit holders to carry on campus.
To the best of my knowledge, there are also damn few instances of a mass shooter being engaged by a CCW permit holder, effortlessly capping the CCWer and moving on. Sure, there's the example of Brendan McKown at Tacoma Mall (2005 IIRC), but a factor there is that McKown suffered an inopportune attack of humanitarianism and couldn't bring himself to fire; by all accounts, McKown totally had the drop on Maldonado, and could have shot him.
The people who perpetrate violent crimes, on college campuses or elsewhere, are not the type to be deterred by the possibility that some of their victims may be armed.
So why do mass shootings overwhelmingly occur in "gun free" zones, like educational institutions and shopping malls? Mr. Nathan's assertion isn't supported by evidence, especially given what we understand of the psychology of mass shooters. Mass shooters typically seek to go out, if not in a blaze of glory, at least in a blaze of infamy. They want to be remembered as anti-heroes, terrible killers mercilessly mowing down victims at will (an image the news media is all too happy to support in the interest of sensationalism). That's why so many of them commit suicide as soon as they encounter armed resistance: it doesn't fit into the self-image they've crafted that they can be stopped by anyone but themselves.
As a result, it can very reasonably be surmised that would-be mass shooters
are deterred by the possibility that some Joe Shmoe with a CCW permit could stop them in their tracks. The typical mass shooter seems to count on it taking at least several minutes for the police to arrive, and more before they try to intervene (admittedly, police tactics have been evolving with every incident). In the case of Virginia Tech, Cho bought himself additional time by chaining the doors to the building shut, confident that he'd be the only armed person inside. Would he have just as readily locked himself inside the building if the possibility existed one or more students and/or faculty present were carrying?
If even one innocent bystander is killed in a gun duel between a marginally trained civilian and a murderous madman, the price is too high.
Even if, in the process, the "madman" is stopped from slaughtering everybody else in the class? Why is the price exacted by relying on "gun free" zones
not too high? By what perverted system of values is it better that a mass shooter be allowed to slaughter 32 people than that one person--who, all things being equal, would probably have been murdered anyway--dies in the course of the shooter being stopped?
If even one previously law-abiding college student loses his mental faculties — biologically, psychologically or perhaps fueled by alcohol, drugs or some general existential angst — then the price is too high.
Ho-hum, it's the old "what if someone snaps? (because guns have magical mind-control powers)" canard.
If such an individual were to lose his shit to the extent that he's willing to
kill someone, why should he be stopped by not having a firearm to hand? Why wouldn't he attempt to stab, beat or strangle the object of his ire instead? And if someone's never shown the propensity to attempt homicide by means other than a firearm, why should he suddenly become more inclined to commit homicide merely because he
does have a firearm to hand?
The fact is that the best predictor we have of a person's future behavior is his past behavior. A person who has not previously demonstrated a propensity for unlawful violence is very unlikely to become homicidal without warning.
However, rational calculations of risk aren’t a factor in decision-making processes of the mentally unstable — which, I think all can agree, perpetrators of violent crime surely are, at some level.
Here, Nathan is begging the question (
http://fallacyfiles.org/begquest.html) by means of equivocation (
http://fallacyfiles.org/equivoqu.html). Rather than presenting evidence that "rational calculations of risk aren’t a factor in decision-making processes" of "perpetrators of violent crime," he incorporates an inability to make "rational calculations of risk" into a definition of "mentally unstable," and then
redefines that term to incorporate, "at some level," violent criminals, without regard to the possibility that his two definitions might be mutually exclusive, at least in part.
As
One-eyed Fat Man on this forum likes to point out, "there's never a cop around when you need one" because criminals typically do not commit crimes in the presence of police officers. This is strong evidence that the "criminally minded" can be perfectly capable of "rational calculations of risk." It is, in fact, quite a radical notion that they wouldn't be.
Those who think that allowing weapons on campus will somehow prevent or mitigate violence or deter the random insanity of fallible humanity are, unfortunately, mistaken. The brokenness of humanity can’t be cured by arming potential victims or even attempting to disarm the criminally minded.
The second sentence in that passage, while almost certainly correct, doesn't actually support the assertions made in the first sentence. If the prospective victim of a violent crime is able to repel the aggressor by the display or even the use of a CCW, how does that
not "mitigate violence"? Unless you subscribe to some fucked-up pacifist code in which all violence is regarded as deplorable regardless of context, and a prospective victim who prevents the completion of a violent crime by wielding lethal force is no better than the aggressor?
Hold on a minute... Nathan says "the brokenness of humanity can't be cured by <...> attempting to disarm the criminally minded." What's that if it's not a concession that
"gun free" zones don't work? Right there, he acknowledges that prohibiting firearms on campus isn't going to prevent a single violent crime,
and yet he still wants to deprive the prospective victims of those crimes of the most effective means of self-defense? How is that not an expression of a moral code so utterly depraved as to be unworthy of being given any consideration whatsoever?
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