Keep Guns Off Campus!

Permitting guns on campuses is simply a reaction to dangerous situations that come together due to failures in multiple areas of our society. It won't make it less likely that horrible tragedies will occur again.

School, mental health and firearm policies to protect students and every American can and should be more thorough in the future. Rather than looking to react to this problem at the last possible second with another gun, let's look at ways to stop another situation from escalating into a shooting to begin with.

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Someone please make the bad people go away!

The mental health response also failed at Virginia Tech, as it has in other multiple shootings elsewhere. In almost every case, there have been friends, teachers and others who knew the shooter was troubled and likely dangerous. In many cases, including the Virginia Tech shooting, the shooter had sought help, then fell through the cracks due to weaknesses in the system. No one in a position of authority to act listened to and properly reported the warnings.

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Maybe, but doesn't that set a dangerous precedent? The authorities can declare someone a threat before a crime is even comitted?

Also--startlingly--felons, the dangerously mentally ill and just about anybody can buy firearms without the background check or any paperwork at all. I'm not talking about on the streets or from the "black market," but in public from "private sellers" at advertised events, such as gun shows and in newspaper and catalog ads.

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So let's punish everyone by instituting a bureaucratic policy to require that law abiding, private individuals perform background checks, which would severely hamper private collectors from selling/trading.

Forcing colleges to allow students to carry concealed weapons isn't a solution and it could easily make matters worse. It effectively rewrites the book on how police respond to a situation with an active shooter. The one student with the gun would no longer be the only target -- that person could be one among several or more. This is why nearly every campus law enforcement organization also opposes this measure.

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I'd like to see some LEO input on how officers would react to a shooting, if for example an armed student reacted and subdued the threat. How would you differentiate? I know if I was the armed student, I would consciously comply w/every command until the situation is diffused. I'd much rather do this than hide under a desk and hope I don't get shot while the killing spree continues.

It's bad that this guy was put in such an awful situation, but honestly - I'm surprised that such a harsh lesson in reality didn't change his worldview in a different way, such as "I never want to be defenseless again."

Verbal101 said:

I'd like to see some LEO input on how officers would react to a shooting, if for example an armed student reacted and subdued the threat. How would you differentiate? I know if I was the armed student, I would consciously comply w/every command until the situation is diffused. I'd much rather do this than hide under a desk and hope I don't get shot while the killing spree continues.

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Yes. This is the worst possible time to be asserting your right to carry and defend yourself. Follow the officer's command to the letter, let him cuff you, and don't argue. It will all be straightened out in time. Better that it is straightened out without getting any unnecessary holes put in you.

Forcing colleges to allow students to carry concealed weapons isn't a solution and it could easily make matters worse. It effectively rewrites the book on how police respond to a situation with an active shooter. The one student with the gun would no longer be the only target -- that person could be one among several or more. This is why nearly every campus law enforcement organization also opposes this measure.

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Uh, the guy shooting cowering, screaming, begging victims is the right person to shoot. It is not all that confusing.

Permitting guns on campuses is simply a reaction to dangerous situations that come together due to failures in multiple areas of our society.

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Of course it's a reaction. Unlike most of the others, however, it has a chance of working. Can you say the same about your "wishing away the bad things" solution?

It won't make it less likely that horrible tragedies will occur again.

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So you say. I say allowing guns on campus WILL make it less likely.
The people who plan and carry out these attacks still have the ability to think and plan ahead, obviously. So, if they knew there was a good possibility that the only fatality would be theirs, that might just be a good enough deterrent. Which is probably why very few people go shooting up a police station full of armed deputies.

groats said:

So you say. I say allowing guns on campus WILL make it less likely.
The people who plan and carry out these attacks still have the ability to think and plan ahead, obviously. So, if they knew there was a good possibility that the only fatality would be theirs, that might just be a good enough deterrent. Which is probably why very few people go shooting up a police station full of armed deputies.

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+1

From the article:

Permitting guns on campuses is simply a reaction to dangerous situations that come together due to failures in multiple areas of our society. It won't make it less likely that horrible tragedies will occur again.

School, mental health and firearm policies to protect students and every American can and should be more thorough in the future. Rather than looking to react to this problem at the last possible second with another gun, let's look at ways to stop another situation from escalating into a shooting to begin with.

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False dilemma. The author presents the following choice:

1) we allow guns on campus
or
2) we look for way to stop the situation from escalating into a shooting to begin with.

He then goes to argue that #2 is superior to choice #1. But, his argument is :bsflag: because those are really 2 separate choices. You can do both, and that's really the correct answer.

The comments section is an entertaining read.

[s:4y58btas]Gun Free Zones[/s:4y58btas] Defenseless Victim Zones do not save lives. This has been proven over and over again, every single time it has been tried.

Fighting back with an armed response does save lives. This too has been proven every time it has been tried.

Firearms aren't the problem. Actions, and an inability to take action, are the problems.

As Suzanna Hupp said, "...but no one can argue that it certainly would have changed the odds..."

Verbal101 said:

Maybe, but doesn't that set a dangerous precedent? The authorities can declare someone a threat before a crime is even comitted?

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Isn't this what the TSA does everyday?

It's bad that this guy was put in such an awful situation, but honestly - I'm surprised that such a harsh lesson in reality didn't change his worldview in a different way, such as "I never want to be defenseless again."

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Pure and simple, he's scared of evil guns. While you and I know he should instead focus on people and their actions, this guy has focused on an "object".

Well, we have all seen what a hotbed for violent crime Utah's college campuses have become. Now that students in Colorado won their lawsuit, they will become hotbeds of violent, armed crime again, too (they had a short respite when the University system adopted a no guns policy for a few months).

phantoms said:

Verbal101 said:

Maybe, but doesn't that set a dangerous precedent? The authorities can declare someone a threat before a crime is even comitted?

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Isn't this what the TSA does everyday?

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Anyone else notice the similarities between "gun control" and the whole TSA thing?

(Rights Free Zones don't work either)

CoffeeMate said:

Firearms aren't the problem. Actions, and an inability to take action, are the problems.

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This. When you take away the possibility of an equal and opposite reaction, you create bad physics.