The Fallacy of a Weapons Free Campus
This Campus Is A WEAPON FREE ZONE. Clear and concise, but ineffective and misleading. This Campus is a DISARMED VICTIM ZONE would be more accurate.
A Preventable Tragedy
The senseless murders on 4/16/07 at the VA Tech Campus, while tragic, are just more in a long line of pointless killings being perpetrated on school campuses worldwide. Since Charles Whitman started this sick trend in 1966, the world has become aware of the fact that school campuses are not exactly the safe, utopian environments of higher learning they once were.
Most school shootings involve one or more troubled youths who plan, prepare, and plot to murder innocent people. Their motives are sometimes unclear and they may or may not know their victims. Their intentions can be pieced together through eyewitness accounts, but the aftermath of their rampages can't be more real. Mindless of the laws that strictly prohibit murder, kidnapping, and assault in this country, these individuals carry out their plans with commitment, knowing they will probably never be held accountable for their actions.
If a twisted killer is determined to enter a classroom with the intent of harming people, he will figure out a way to succeed, regardless of any law prohibiting his intentions. Why, then, are the bleeding-hearts on the left convinced that more and stricter laws, sweeping weapons bans, and empathy for the killers are the solutions to this growing problem? "What could have driven him to this?", they wonder. "The system must have failed him", they ponder. Somehow they always seem to rationalize turning the killer into the "victim". Then they immediately set out to politicize the situation, attacking gun manufacturers and the NRA as if they are responsible for the actions of un-medicated loons with stolen weapons.
Liberals damn conservatives for being "aggressive" and "fear-mongering". I damn them for being naive and complacent. They're proactive enough when it comes to reducing their carbon footprints, but they ignore the threat of local murderers stalking unarmed people. I send my deepest condolences to those three dozen families who will never again hug their children over the holidays. However, I believe no amount of reactive liberal sorrow can take the place of common sense and preparation. As the saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Preventing Future Losses
- The stupid, whiny, retarded, anti-gun "solution" -
On October 28, 2002, at The University of Arizona's College of Nursing, a disgruntled student walked into an instructor's office and shot and killed her. A few minutes later, armed with five guns, he killed two more of his instructors in a classroom before shooting himself. As courageous as this asshole was, he was apparently unaware of the campus's policy prohibiting the possession of weapons on campus/university property, which had been put into effect six years prior.
In late 2006, the U of A Police Department pasted stickers, just like the one above, on every door to every campus building. The campus's intolerance for any weapon on school grounds had been boldly and publicly declared. "No guns allowed", they said. They also implemented a Campus Emergency Response Team. Wow, stickers and response teams, and those neat emergency blue-light phones all over the place. I feel completely secure!
Back to VA Tech, I can see the headlines now - Virginia Tech Police Chief Forms Task Force, and College Administrators Hold Meetings. Whew, meetings and committees, task forces and response teams. The only thing left is for the Million Menopausal March to put out a strongly worded statement blaming the NRA and demanding legislative action to close gun show "loopholes". Wait, they already did that and it had zero effect.
It's cynical, I know, but how else should I react to such ignorant idiocy?
- The common sense solution -
Here it is, straight from the mouth of the right-wing, assault-weapon-toting, flag-waving purveyor of eye-for-an-eye diplomacy. We need to allow people to carry guns on campus. (Woah, wha...? A gun on campus?! There will be mass shootings on a daily basis!) I say, "what a concept." Responsible, law-abiding citizens are able to carry open or concealed in town and on the road and hiking and in restaurants and in stores and at the park and in homes and in cars and at the ranges – virtually everywhere in Arizona except on school grounds. Why? Because some feel-good idiot decided that schools would be safer without "gun-toting rednecks" packing heat. Try rationalizing that to these 35 people. If school grounds are supposed to be gun-free places, explain to me why even the Amish aren't safe.
This very real threat can't be ignored any longer. With kids of my own, I hate to acknowledge that our schools aren't safe, but I am a realist. In my day, bullies tormented weaker kids until they got an unexpected fat lip. Today, no one is safe from the easily-offended outcast who quietly plots revenge against oblivious or apathetic victims. Unfortunately, it takes mass killings like this to remind us of the threat, but it also spurs gun-ban lobbyists, knee-jerkers, and finger-pointers into pointless political activism.
I've got news for all those delusional retards; most of these shootings cannot be deterred by mere laws, rules, policies, or threats of litigation. However, many may be prevented by the understanding that instructors, staff, and administrators could be packing heat. Could armed teachers have prevented the VA Tech massacre? Probably not, but one diligent, armed teacher might have kept the death toll from reaching thirty two.
Let's not exclude elementary schools, either. College students should have the sense to recognize danger and to react accordingly. Young children, however, may be ignorant or curious enough to be drawn closer to danger. They rely on their teachers to tell them what to do in a time of crisis and, hopefully, those teachers won't freeze when it's time for reaction. Personally, I'd feel better if my kid's teacher was trained and packing. Just ask these survivors if armed faculty might have reduced the death toll at this school.
The idea of citizens carrying guns on campus is the most effective deterrent available against would-be assassins. These senseless acts will continue – shootings, hostage-taking, terrorism – in our schools no matter what we do. It is our responsibility to take action now and not stick our heads in the sand until next time, hoping cries of "peace now" will counter criminal intent. The worst thing we can do now is to allow the liberal gun-ban lobbyists to attack the only effective defensive measure available to us. Arming citizens against crime and tyranny is why the Second Amendment was written. It's what made our country sovereign and it's the only thing that will preserve it.
– Publius