US Features
Group says concealed weapons would lower US campus violence
Mar 19, 2008, 1:53 GMT
Washington - Bloody shooting rampages on college campuses have shocked American society twice within the last year and unleashed a hefty debate over the country's gun laws each time.
Now the gun lobby, student groups and citizen advocates are fighting for an expansion of the right to carry a concealed weapon.
The push comes as the US Supreme Court debated for the first time in its history on Tuesday whether the US constitution guarantees individuals the right to own and carry guns.
Under the proposals by the student gun lobby - which are not part of the court case - students would be allowed to attend lectures armed with a gun so that if a gunman were to start a rampage in their classroom, they could shoot him dead.
'The only way to stop a person with a gun is another person with a gun,' 23-year-old University of Cincinnati student Michael Flitcraft, said, expressing the sentiments of those supporting the legislative change.
Currently, bills are being considered in 12 US states that would allow people who already hold concealed weapons licenses to carry them on campus. With the exception of Utah, all US states currently ban carrying a weapon on campus.
The organizations supporting these initiatives say their goal is limited - not to arm all students, just those who already have licenses to carry a concealed weapon.
But many people find the idea ludicrous and warn of a Wild West environment at US universities.
Doug Pennington, a spokesman for the Brady Campaign Against Gun Violence, said it would be irresponsible to allow armed youth to march into lectures carrying a gun.
'When it comes to colleges and universities, they should be havens - a bastion of safety. You're supposed to go to class to learn stuff, not wondering if the person next to you is competent enough to actually possess a firearm,' Pennington told the student newspaper at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas.
While the Supreme Court justices won't rule on whether the nation's capital can ban all handguns until June, the debate Tuesday showed some justices in favour of limits on such guns.
Justices suggested that even if the constitution guarantees the right to own guns, there should be restrictions on their using them - perhaps including a ban of guns on campus.
The movement Students for Concealed Carrying on Campus (SCCC) says it has more than 22,000 members - students, faculty members, parents of students and concerned citizens at hundreds of colleges and universities in all 50 US states.
The initiative was sparked by the April 2007 massacre of 30 students and faculty members at Virginia Polytechnic University in Blacksburg, Virginia. It gained momentum earlier this year after a gunman killed five people in a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University.
The movement says it is not affiliated with the National Rifle Association, the main organization representing gun owners in the US.
SCCC spokesman Scott Lewis says the movement can't promise to prevent all massacres, but with concealed weapons permitted on campuses, the chances are good that any gunman running amok could be quickly stopped.
'Basically what we are advocating is allowing the same individuals who are trained and licensed to carry (guns) in virtually all other unsecured locations - meaning where there are no X-ray machines - to carry on campus,' Lewis said on Fox News television.
Lewis says the current restrictions have turned universities into unprotected, ideal targets for suicidal people who want to take innocent lives before they kill themselves.
Critics point out that most everywhere in America, all that's needed for a concealed weapon license is to be 18 or 21, with a clean criminal record.
The Brady campaign spokesman called the movement 'shameful' in light of the 30,000 deaths by gun violence every year in the US. If students are armed, it would be difficult for police to identify the attacker, they say.
Paul Helmke, also of the Brady campaign - which is named after James Brady, an aide to late president Ronald Reagan who was permanently disabled by a 1981 assassination attempt - said allowing guns on campus would make things even more dangerous.
'Once you put those guns onto the college campus, into the dorm room, into the frat house, they are going to get lost, they are going to get stolen, they are going to get misused,' Helmke said on Fox News.
Students at Virginia Tech find the suggestion of arming students shocking.
Garrett Evans, who was shot in both legs in the attack, said the gunman, Cho Seung Hui, came into his classroom and opened fire so abruptly that no one would have had the chance to shoot back.
'Having guns in the classroom only makes things worse,' said Evans.
Omar Samaha, whose sister was killed in the Virginia Tech rampage, said guns on campus risk creating an environment where young people drink and fight and are not always able to control their emotions.
'It's kind of a crazy notion to think about,' he said in USA Today 'It takes us back to the wild, Wild West.'
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Older Talkback
page: 1
You're mistaken about a great many things, Tonny, why would this be any different?
It's hard to argue with: The only person who seems to have a gun on certain campuses is the unknown (or known, but ignored) homicidal maniac. The cities with the worst gun, and violent, crime are the one's with the strictest gun laws, or gun bans i.e. detroit, Chicago, New York.
Many College campuses have allowed guns for years. Typically, the dorm RA, or the frat house supervisor has a lockup for them. I attended two colleges that allowed them. No one has ever been shot at either one.
Carry permits are allowed on many of the nations college campuses, by state law. Almost all of them have never had a shooting.
No one with a carry permit, in my state has ever been successfully prosecuted for a crime with the carried weapon. This is likely due to the fact that you are fingerprinted.
The Supreme court is deciding now what the second amendment is supposed to preserve.
The NRA only believes in your right to bear arms, not the unrestricted sales of them to anyone. They also believe you should try and convict criminals, harsh sentences for violent crimes and not just let them go. Also, they embrace the divine right to protect your life and the lives of the innocent.
That is hard to argue with.
Tonny knows how to spell, and uses excellent grammar. A gun saved my life once, albeit in my own household, but it saved my life. If students want to carry concealed weapons, they should have a background check, and be thoroughly trained and licensed in gun safety. It should be a stable, sane person's right to self defense. Not to say that unstable, and insane people don't have the right to safety too, but they just can't be trusted. Sorry.
guns should be outlawed because theyu can kill people .sharp objects should be outlawed becayuse they can kill people .ideas should be outlawed because they acn kill people . people should be outlawed because they kill people .
...still not Tonny.
How much more of a wuss can you be than to misrepresent someone else on a post? Why is this...do you actually have nothing to say?
'Typically, the dorm RA, or the frat house supervisor has a lockup for them.'
A locked-up gun cannot hurt anyone, but at the same time how can it 'protect' someone, sp4? If they are locked up, why have them? This is the same yhing as a ban. By the way, places like New York brought in gun controls because of the crime associated with thugs having guns. The US has become a lawless country. The old west mentality has taken over most aspects of US life. Rather than more laws, try a change of mindset. The mind should be polished and precise, not the gun.
Can anybody please clarify why rules that work in the entire world stop having an effect in the USA .Gun Ban is universal except in the USA and look at the results ....Now you even have idiots claiming students should carry guns .About time people opposed to those lunatics start putting some pressure on your lawmakers .
No guns is the simple answer .It works in the entire world,why should the USA be any different .
Do we have lunatic gunslingers on our university campusses ?I think not ...certainly not in such numbers as to produce the gun related crime figures you have .
Imagine for a split second allowing testosterone guided teenagers to carry guns on campus .And those wgo propose that completely insane scenario would even add that the shootouts that will be the result of that are the sole responsibility of the shooter .I say those that propose this insanity share the responibility of the result and should be considered criminals too ,plain and simple .In a modern civilization there is no place for these morons.
BNy the way the post about sharp oblects being as dangerous as guns is not from me .I guess some idiot gunslinger short of arguments found nothing better than to do ...w
...after all, you have fewer freedoms in those countries.
Isthat so SP4 ?Are all these gun related deaths your standards of freedom ?Or are you refering to torture,kidnapping,spying on your population,lying to Congress and population then ?I would like you to be at least a bit more substantial in your afirmations,we need a good laugh sometimes.I know you can provide that...
I don't really think I could be clearer than I was, but, for the neophyte, I was refering to the stated freedoms in the Constitution, not a host of implied freedoms you may be referring to...
I'm not of aware of routine torture in America, outside of the occasional beating and abuse some cops administer.
...well...maybe when Al Gore speaks...but I still don't think that is against the law.
...all those renditions in Europe we hear about...?
Every one was done with that aid of the local nations intelligence arm!
Why don't they just issue handguns to all citizens and get it over with. That way we'll be able to protect ourselves against nasty neighbors, surly
clerks, irritating drivers, disrespective teens, etc. Maybe we could all wear Western hats, boots, and holsters for that treasured weapon!
SP4 please get lost. You are an embarrasment and proof that internet access is a dangerous thing for some children.
GunNuts are just that nuts. In their world America would not be 'safe' unless every man, woman, and child carried a piece. What great logic. Unfortunately stupidity reproduces rapidly and the NRA is a well funded lot of losers who worship the gun.
...I'll disappear the day you start using your brain. In other words, I expect to be around indefinitely.
The Constitution doesn't grant rights, dickhead, it preserves rights you are already entitled to, even dildos like you.
Try actually reading it sometime. Try reading it on paper. Notice, in the Amendments, the part that applies to the individual, the first Amendment Guarantees free speech.
Now, ponder the second one.
Now, if your brain is working, and I have doubts, consider the founders purpose here: They thought, after free speech, the next freedom was to your right own a thing, a weapon, that was for the purpose of killing your enemies, not hunting, or some such nonsense. It was for conflict and war. It was to deter others from harming you or your way of life.
Pretty deliberate, huh?
Then consider our history: we pulled guns from our mantle and dealt with slavery. We pulled them again to defend ourselves on the prairie. We used them to defend ourselves from the KKK. We used them to defend ourselves in riots like the one's in New York in the 1860's, the riots of the 1960's, the lawlessness of S. Florida in the 1980's, and the LA riots in 1990.
You think you live in a civil society? Wake up.
Now I'm sure, f--kbrain, you admire yourself more than you do Hancock, or Adams, or any of the others, but they were an aberration of history: They actually put the rights of others above their own safety.
Try now, if you've decided to do your own thinking for a change, to appreciate, in that day and age, how remarkable these giants really were.
Then, go back to your stinted, short-sighted, Internet-age amoebic prose and see just how small your intellect really is, compared to the giants who created all this.
Shut up? Not on your life. Now, junior, go peddle your trike.
I don't care to be out there ducking bullets when everyone goes around armed to the teeth. After reading some of the blasting comments here, It just re-enforces my fear for these hotheads to be packing heat!
...lots of folks are armed. What we have here is class distinction. Libnazis like Rosie O'Donnell object to you and I owning arms, but not her bodyguards. Apparently, if you have money, it's OK to buy the gun with a person attached.
People object to guns in the hands of the populace. Yet, look at those places with the strictest laws or outright bans: they have the worst crime.
and realize there are guns everywhere, but heaven help us if everyone is going around with a handgun. Personally, I don't think there should be a handgun anywhere - period! All the short-fused populace will use a gun instead to vent their anger, and I don't think it's worth the chance, and that's my humble opinion...realizing it goes against your incredible, intellectual thinking!
And while we're at it, why not just wear the damn thing in plain view!
..and the question I have is this: Do we need the same law everywhere?
My objection is not with gun control, it's with outright gun bans. To ask a person to get a permit in Utah, to carry one in the trunk of his car, is a real burdon as opposed to New York City, where it behooves the local police to ask for carry permits.
The idea was to allow you to defend yourself from people who can hurt you, and your family.
A whole lot of people in the south kept some real atrocities from occurring during Jim Crow, by owning weapons. In Miami, crime got so bad, and police corruption so rampant, the Chief of police adivsed citizens to arm themsleves! During the Watts riots, people held off rioters with guns, as they did in the riots started over Rodney King. Personally, who needs a gun more than a person living in high crime area?
The law cuts both ways. The founders were wise. Guns are an equalizer.
Arming students would be insane to say the least, and as far as professors and officials being armed - they would have to be at the right place at the right time to do any good. And how could you count on that???
The issue is a politcal football. It's not supposed to make any sense.
Take a look at campus violence, campus deaths due to drug and alchohol use, campus suicide, etc., and ask yourself why none of that ever makes the news?
Answer, not spectacular enough.
It's a proven fact that drugs and alcohol cause many, many more deaths and distruction among students than any gun ever did. I can't recall the statistics of an article printed last year, but they were staggering!
They could ban concealed weapons and just pack them out in the open.
By the way, guns are equalizers; they and the folks behind them create equal bloodshed. What would not be so equal is that the wealthier students could afford better, more deadly accurate guns.
Just imagine a bunch of braggers showing off their latest designer firearms. Heck, some educated students could design their own more improved versions and perhaps, they could get extra credit for it.
The athletes could have a sporting event to see who could toss a gun the farthest.
Shoot, they could name their guns and that would make the guns seem like they were more a part of the family, sort of like how pets are.
Officials might spoil the fun though, 'cause they just might stipulate that only guns with rubber bullets can be used on campus. Though, I think water guns would make their day.
Have fun with this one, Andy Rooney.
...I went to two colleges that allowed firearms on Campus and never saw a person get shot...ever.
Now, we had a girl abducted, one raped, several poor students die of drug and alchohol overdoses, some spotty accidents, suicides, etc., but no one ever got shot, not even by accident.
The more weapons students have the more likely they are to be used. It is kind of like a prewar buildup. No one knows when the conflict will flare-up, yet, flare-up it will, just a matter of time.
After all, the more weapons we have in a free society, the more they will be used. I think there has been enough killing throughout our civilization as it is. Still, we have the right to bear arms, and many do; human nature can be a terrible thing sometimes.
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tonny from belgiumMar 19th, 2008 - 16:38:59
I(ve always thought that the people who claimed students carrying conceiled weapons on university campuses to be the answer to the rampant campus kellers some kind of jokers,now I think they are dangerous lunatics .The solution they propose to gun relatede violence is so dangerous those people need to be put in straightjackets and the NBA labeled as a terrorist organisation .Where are you now gunfreaks ?
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