One reader argues guns in the classroom make dangerous situations.
Guns are not necessary for students to carry on campus. They are not qualified to use them. They do not need to protect their lives at school. Having a gun to protect yourself on campus is not realistic, and it’s not a political issue.
It’s a damn gun issue. Gun! To defend our police force, they do a great job. In order to get a job as an officer, they have to go through tons of screening and training. Background checks are just the start; they must be certified mentally sound. That seems a lot safer to me than students who think that being able to hold a gun qualifies them to use it. They have to have acceptable vision, hearing and dexterous competence. What student has all of these credentials? They must train in the usage of a gun, are constantly held to a standard of marksmanship, and they sure as heck aren’t allowed to get hammered before their shift.
Also, they are trained to know when using a gun is appropriate. Students do not go through these safeguards that stop guns from being put in the wrong hands. What Clark Lenz proposed in his Monday column is that any stressed out student, hopped up on caffeine and possibly drunk from last night, should be able to have a gun close to their twitchy little fingers.
I’ve seen students lose their minds when the auditorium lights go out. I can’t imagine what would happen if someone popped a balloon behind 200 students, a quarter of which decided to carry a gun that morning.
I’ve also been part of discussions about how much caffeine or alcohol they drank before coming to class. I don’t want to give that person a gun. I really don’t want to give a gun to anyone who would try using it right away. The option to retreat from danger doesn’t seem to come up very often. But you can bet if I hear gunshots going off in Prexy’s, I won’t be hanging around. Not even if they put in two new statues.
The need to be armed to protect our lives at school is not realistic. While students are driving drunk, texting while driving and doing countless other horrible things to their health and safety, protecting their lives from others wanting to hurt them is the last to be considered. The reason it is a hot issue is because guns can cause terror. There isn’t a whole lot of terror in sending a text message while driving. I don’t feel the need to carry a gun to campus because having my life threatened by anything else other than a difficult exam just doesn’t happen. If I could know that students wanted a gun for safety, knew how to use it, were formally trained, and knew that using a gun was the absolute last resort in defending themselves, I’d be okay with it. But I can’t know that. I can’t know the guy next to me isn’t a bumbling idiot who may just start shooting if he hears yelling, and at whatever direction.
No one can know that they are safer with untrained gun users sitting right next to them. So keep the guns off campus, and keep it away from the political banter: I’m a Republican. I don’t appreciate someone using that to explain my stance on issues that have nothing to do with how I vote.
Ira Werger
I agree with these comments. The original article was a case study in lazy journalism. Throwing out a comment about “all-to-frequent” shootings on campus without giving a citation or an actual number is simply ridiculous. I dare the BI staff members to come up with the names of 10 people who committed campus shootings at the University of Wyoming in the past 100 years. Making up a vague statement without any factual basis is the lowest form of writing imaginable. LAME. The overall argument (bad guys ignore the law and carries guns, so we should all get to carry guns) is just dumb. It reminds me of something a kindergartner would think up (the bad kids run around the classroom and don’t stay at their desks, so I should be able to run around as well). Attitudes like this are just petulant and do nothing to maintain good social values.
Mr. Werger,
So, if I have this straight, you trust your fellow students to:
1.) Vote
2.) Go to war and fight for your freedom to right this article
3.) Be free from unreasonable search and seizure
4.) Protest various issues using their First Amendment freedom of assembly
5.) Obtain degrees in Business, Psychology, and Engineering – which will allow them to manage your money, your mind, your roads, and your bridges
However, you do not trust them to…own a firearm and defend their lives?
Interesting, isn’t it, that universities emphasize the degree to which we are adults now, meant to manage our lives, our freedoms, and our country.
As long as we pretend there are nine amendments, and not ten.
As long as we pretend that students are real, honest-to-goodness adults, except for that pesky right not to rely on the government to defend their person. My brother is a police officer, as was my father and grandfather. All were or are heavily in favor of civilian concealed carry, including my brother who carried on campus while earning his Masters in Criminal Justice. This is because from lives spent enforcing the law, they understand that all too often, when seconds count the police are only minutes away.
Interesting, too, that on the wide number of campuses that allow concealed carry (Weber State in Ogden, Utah, for instance), there have been practically no recorded incidents with guns, whereas at Virginia Tech and the recent shooting at Oikos Christian University in California – schools with strict “no guns” policies – the killers were not stopped from walking onto campus and picking which targets they wanted to slaughter.
Murders don’t obey gun possession laws, and gun-free zones provide nothing but a comforting placebo, a total illusion of security.
You mention in your article that students are too emotionally unstable to own guns. You cite the reaction when the lights go out in an auditorium. I, for one, trust my fellow students more than I trust a madman to obey a sign that says “no guns”.
You mention as well that “guns can cause terror”. A typical argument based more on television and movies than reality. Those of us who grew up with guns understand that there are more than a hundred million of them in America, and every single day nearly 100% of those guns do no harm to anyone. Tens of millions of these terror-causing devices just sitting there in gun safes, closets, or pockets (like on my own person when I concealed carry).
Speech can cause terror too. Ask anyone on the end of racist speech. Religion can cause terror. Ask any gay person who has ever been screamed at by a religious protestor, or any terrified young lady walking into Planned Parenthood to make a horribly difficult decision, called a slut or a sinner.
Knives can cause terror. Baseball bats can cause terror. In the hands of a murderer, any tool will suffice, and no “gun-free” policy will temper the desire to kill. People cause terror.
We cannot trust our fellow students to be the bright, shining hope of society’s future, and at the same time treat them like children in regards to their Second Amendment rights. It’s hypocrisy in purest form.
-Cameron W. Geeting
University of Wyoming College of Law
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