Guns on campus
The folks at College Stats sent us a link to their report on the debate over allowing guns on campus being considered in ten states.
Last year was a banner year for proponents of gun carrying on college campuses. No fewer than 23 state legislatures saw bills introduced that would allow either faculty or students, or both, to bring firearms onto school grounds. The vast majority of the lawmakers in these states declined to change their current laws on the subject. Rather than giving up the fight, supporters of college carry laws have been rejuvenated by recent school shootings and have brought the issue back around in 2012. In these 10 states across the country, the great debate rages on.
States need to realize that criminals are already bringing guns on their campuses irrespective of the laws that are designed to prevent just that. They’re criminals, that’s what they do – break laws. Unfortunately, those laws also prevent the people who abide by the law from bringing guns on campus, so colleges are just like game preserves – a large area filled with defenseless potential victims. That’s what criminals are looking for.
Category: Guns
Just as Illinois is a giant game preserve.
A friend and former Cav Scout (whatever that is, if he was a snipe or a grunt I would understand but I digress, had a great idea that I believe works with existing laws. Why not commission members of the faculty as reserve police officers and issue them a duty weapon at the start of the day?
HM2 FMF-SW Ret: Do you really think it’s a good idea to trust a group who nearly to a person think “Guns . . . baaaad!” and may well have never fired one with LE responsibilities and a pistol? Sheesh – half of them would probably refuse to carry a pistol, and the other half would be more likely to injure an innocent bystander (or themselves) if they ever had to use their firearm.
On the other hand, if it were a mandatory condition of employment, it might result in a huge number of blatantly liberal socialists leaving academia. So maybe there is merit in the idea after all. (smile)
Right hondo. And you teach were?
Correction: You teach where?
I don’t teach. But I have extensive academic experience over the years. My experience is consistent with what I stated, and is backed by available research into the subject.
Available research shows – very clearly – that academic faculties are considerably skewed to the politically liberal side of the spectrum and in favor of gun control. The academic disciplines that are reasonably balanced politically are the hard sciences/engineering, health sciences, and business disciplines. All others show a far more markedly pronounced liberal bias than the rest of society, which is generally split roughly 30/40/30 liberal/moderate/conservative.
Google the paper “The Social and Political Views of American Professors” by Neil Gross and Solon Simmons (2007). It’s rather hard to find, but the full article is still available on-line if you look enough. (Do not confuse it with a similar article from either 2005 or 2006 by the same authors which focuses on public perceptions and tenure.)
I not sure that I want people ditzy enough to vote
for Obama to be encouraged to pack heat, also. 🙁
Yo click here … go to the hospital … without delay … I think you are having a brain bleed!
@2: Why should it be limited to faculty? If a person is 21 years of age and can pass the prerequisite checks and training to carry a firearm, then I believe that should cover anywhere within the issuing authority’s perview, including a college campus. I see no distinction between one side of a sidewalk and the other, meaning if you can lawfully carry a firearm on one side of a street, then you should be able to do so on the other side, also. Where is this invisible border? Bullets don’t recognize them and neither do criminals.