A comment I received on a column about guns at CSU deserves an answer. It comes from a student at CSU who asks where the supposed support for guns on campus is documented, and more importantly reveals a world view that I believe is a centerpiece of the anti-gun crowd. First, the evidence of support: Please reread this column, citing 21 out of 29 students in the Associated Students of CSU Senate voted to leave the school's policy unchanged, allowing licensed gun owners to carry concealed on campus.
Entry: Colorado State University gun ban isn't settled yet Posted/Updated: 04/26/2010 09:39 AM
Eugene - "As a University of Colorado student, I would be very interested in where you find support for this claim that the majority of students want firearms on campuses. This really isn't about CU's governing authority or over gun rights. This is about safety on campuses that are constantly filled with vulnerable populations including children, immature students and the elderly. I believe that the threat to these populations and others is of much greater concern to CU students than the ability for a few citizens to brazenly carry firearms in an educational setting."
He appeals to safety for the student body, which is the goal of all parties to the debate. What I find fascinating is the statement about the campus containing vulnerable populations, and that the threat to them is greater than the right of a few citizens to brazenly carry firearms in an educational setting. In other words, licensed carriers of concealed weapons are an inherent threat to those vulnerable populations simply by walking around with a hidden weapon.
What is this based on? Is it based on personal experience with desperados swaggering about the student union flashing their matched chrome revolvers? Probably not because that behavior is already illegal, and nobody who is lawful enough to get a permit would risk losing it to bully a freshman. Is it a projection of his own personality, assuming that anyone with a symbol of power would use it to compensate for an innate feeling of inferiority? Is it based on knowledge of a long litany of shootings initiated against innocent people by concealed carry permit holders? I think not. The Violence Policy Center had to start back in 2007 and accumulate to 2010 in order to assemble 92 examples of bad actors out of a pool of about 3 million license holders. You have a higher chance of being killed by lightning.
I believe this is the crux of the disagreement between gun advocates and those seeking to banish all guns from our society by "reasonable restrictions" that have the practical effect of removing all guns from citizens. Our side believes that unless we are unmistakably threatened with serious injury or death, we will do nothing out of the ordinary. I know many people who have carried guns for years and nobody even knew because they don't initiate confrontations. Their side seems to believe that if we carry a gun, we just can't wait to shoot somebody. This is partly because they think the gun has an evil spirit that we absorb, and partly because they think anyone who actually wishes to carry a gun is unbalanced from the start.
How do we explain that we have thought long and hard about the reasons to carry a lethal weapon? It isn't a decision made on the spur of the moment. How do we explain how we weigh the benefits and the costs of doing so? How do we make them believe that our purpose is defensive and not offensive? We may carry the pound of steel around for all our lives and never need it, and that is to us an acceptable price for having it at hand if we ever do need it. If we could convince Eugene of that truth, maybe he would see that the safety of the vulnerable populations on a campus is not threatened by our invisible presence, but in a crisis we might save a life.
Comments
If you ask one of these people to explain to you why a police officer carries a gun, nine out of ten times you will get an answer on the order of, "to enforce his commands," instead of the correct answer, "to defend his life and the lives of innocents." Therefore, they feel that non-LEOs who carry guns are also outfitting themselves to give orders; and while they are willing to see people forced to do things at the point of a gun by law enforcement (and willing to submit to it themselves), they are unwilling to give that advantage to people without uniforms.
People like your student have no concept of the difference between preparation for self-defense and preparation for aggression.
'Henry' (great use of the name, btw, and great book), I don't know if I'd agree exactly with your interpretation of the reasoning behind Eugene's point of view. Being happily (and sometimes literally, haha) straddled with uber liberal friends, the simple reality is that ignorance breeds both fear and contempt. They are so inured in the Liberal Ideal (don't know if it really deserves caps) that they buy the BS that leftists sell without any first-hand understanding of the realities of legal weapons ownership, of any variety, including automobiles. They believe what they hear stated and implied on CBS and NBC, and they base their views upon those poor excuses for information. If, after some education, they choose to remain irrational, then only the negative experience of being voluntarily unable to resist aggression, or somebody who isn't so unable saving them from said aggression, will open their eyes to reality.
"ignorance breeds both fear and contempt"
especially on this topic.
"Eugene" shows this very well. His use of the term "brazen" shows it.
Specifically in the dabate over college campuses, I always wonder about the description of all people on a campus as "immature students". What about mature students? What about faculty & staff and others visiting? Is everybody on a campus a drunken frat boy looking for a brawl?
Most of the rest of his doubts are anwered by remedying his ignorance about the CCW topic, facts and numbers about permit holders and civilian defensive gun uses, etc.
I guess people like this think that the only reason they might touch a gun is to swagger and brazenly intimidate all others. They're not the sort we're arguing should be able to go about their lives armed.
Does "Eugene" think that letting it be known that the area is largely defense-free except for the occasional police, everyone's safer?
Everyone like "Eugene" should read the article
"Why the Gun is Civilization."
corneredcat(dot)com/Ethics/civilization.aspx
BTW, and learn the facts about the law-abiding nature of CCW holders and defensive gun uses.
If necesary, get help regarding their constant fear of everyone around them, and what they might do if they weren't forcibly disarmed.
eugene is an idiot. You will not reach him with intelligent discourse. Hopefully, he is also sterile.
straightarrow: Thank you for saying exactly what I was thinking.
I have LONG since given up on most people like Eugene. Unfortunately they breed and they vote.
I don't know about this student, but I do know that many people may change their attitude and learn at least more of the truth when more people carry their sidearms OPENLY.
When people see obviously armed individuals of all kinds going about their everyday, peaceful business, it tends to dispel their fears. I have been carrying openly for years, and even the somewhat negative encounters have been beneficial and educational to everyone.
There will always be self absorbed idiots who refuse to accept the truth even when their noses are rubbed into it, but I have found them to be the exception rather than the rule. All most people need is an opportunity to see the truth in action - which speaks louder than any words.
While any mode of carry should be completely acceptable, I do wonder that so many people insist concealing their gun is the ONLY way to carry, and thereby miss so many opportunities to educate others and normalize RKBA.
Some of those regarded as "immature students" vote, selecting our leaders and representatives. Some of those "immature students" serve on juries, deciding innocence or guilt. Some of those "immature students" may serve in our armed forces, or may have already served.
I suspect that decisions such as prohibition of weapons carry on campus are made for other than rational reasons, then pseudo-rational reasons created to justify the decisions. Campuses may be "special" places, but the rules of behavior expected for adults should be similar to the "not-so-special" places. After all, the cited vulnerable populations such as children and the elderly are found in most other places without any "special" rules or regulations.
Sorry for chiming in late on this. What I see in Eugene is a clinical manifestation of hopolophobia. He needs some serious help.
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