Should Professors Be Allowed to Carry Guns?
One thing about blogs: they make it possible for everyone to start sounding off about every new event, instantaneously turning the discussion toward their own pet issues. I was afraid that it was too soon for my previous post, but later found out that some folks over at NRO's The Corner were already talking about a similar issue, and in far less circumspect terms.
They're already discussing whether professors should be able to carry guns over at the Volokh Conspiracy. Seems a little soon for this sort of thing to me, but what do I know?
I've never really understood why one isn't allowed to have firearms on Virginia campuses. It's not as if I have a strong desire to take a gun to class or anything. In fact, I've never even gotten around to getting a concealed-carry permit. It's just that I don't understand the rationale for prohibiting it. A local man around these parts has challenged the law, thus prompting occasional derisive comments about The Very Idea by the Provost at Faculty Senate meetings. For the good of the department, I just bite my tongue.
It's downright amusing to hear some of the reasons for the prohibition (a comment at Volokh: "Universities are a place for reason, not violence." Now waddaya gonna do with something like that, I ask you?) I have a kind of gut-level hunch that it's a good idea to keep guns off of campuses, but a gut-level hunch is all I've really got.
I've often thought that if I were a better and more responsible human being, I'd get my permit and carry most of the time. A gun in my hands is virtually guaranteed not to be misused, and it would put me in a position to defend others in the rather unlikely event that that became necessary. That is: though the odds are low that I'd ever have occasion to use the gun for good, the odds are even lower that I'd ever misuse it. Thus, the world in which I carry a gun is safer than a world in which I don't. Thus it seems like I ought to carry.
But, though I am comfortable with firearms, I wouldn't be comfortable carrying one all over the place. Translation: I'm too lazy and it would be too burdensome. Not the best reason of all time, eh?
There are plenty of times on the farm (note: now technically the ranch) when for one reason or another I've had occasion to stick a handgun in my back pocket. If, say, we're having trouble with a pack of coyotes or wild dogs, but the likelihood of encountering them is small, and I don't feel like toting around a long gun. Now, let me tell ya, after about twenty minutes, I'm like "I wish I'd have left this @*$&ing heavy-ass thing in the house." Holsters are better, but still a pain.
Think of it this way: would you be willing to carry around a heavy, oily, rather dangerous mechanism under your arm every day because there's a one in a [insert name of large number here] chance that it could save lives? My answer so far: not really, but I'm willing to be persuaded on the point.
Furthermore, given the political atmosphere on campuses, lots of people would freak out and think you were crazy, so you've got to figure that into the pain-in-the-ass calculations. A friend of mine once had a plain-clothes cop in a night school class, and the prof and the students were so freaked out when the guy'd get hot and take his jacket off (thus exposing the gun in his shoulder holster), that my friend asked the cop to quit carrying in class. Now that's a fairly high degree of sensitivity--being afraid of armed cops.
At any rate, I certainly hope we can figure out some better solution, since liberalizing concealed-carry laws would, I think, probably do very little to solve this problem, since few people (and very few college professors) will actually avail themselves of the relevant opportunity.
One thing about blogs: they make it possible for everyone to start sounding off about every new event, instantaneously turning the discussion toward their own pet issues. I was afraid that it was too soon for my previous post, but later found out that some folks over at NRO's The Corner were already talking about a similar issue, and in far less circumspect terms.
They're already discussing whether professors should be able to carry guns over at the Volokh Conspiracy. Seems a little soon for this sort of thing to me, but what do I know?
I've never really understood why one isn't allowed to have firearms on Virginia campuses. It's not as if I have a strong desire to take a gun to class or anything. In fact, I've never even gotten around to getting a concealed-carry permit. It's just that I don't understand the rationale for prohibiting it. A local man around these parts has challenged the law, thus prompting occasional derisive comments about The Very Idea by the Provost at Faculty Senate meetings. For the good of the department, I just bite my tongue.
It's downright amusing to hear some of the reasons for the prohibition (a comment at Volokh: "Universities are a place for reason, not violence." Now waddaya gonna do with something like that, I ask you?) I have a kind of gut-level hunch that it's a good idea to keep guns off of campuses, but a gut-level hunch is all I've really got.
I've often thought that if I were a better and more responsible human being, I'd get my permit and carry most of the time. A gun in my hands is virtually guaranteed not to be misused, and it would put me in a position to defend others in the rather unlikely event that that became necessary. That is: though the odds are low that I'd ever have occasion to use the gun for good, the odds are even lower that I'd ever misuse it. Thus, the world in which I carry a gun is safer than a world in which I don't. Thus it seems like I ought to carry.
But, though I am comfortable with firearms, I wouldn't be comfortable carrying one all over the place. Translation: I'm too lazy and it would be too burdensome. Not the best reason of all time, eh?
There are plenty of times on the farm (note: now technically the ranch) when for one reason or another I've had occasion to stick a handgun in my back pocket. If, say, we're having trouble with a pack of coyotes or wild dogs, but the likelihood of encountering them is small, and I don't feel like toting around a long gun. Now, let me tell ya, after about twenty minutes, I'm like "I wish I'd have left this @*$&ing heavy-ass thing in the house." Holsters are better, but still a pain.
Think of it this way: would you be willing to carry around a heavy, oily, rather dangerous mechanism under your arm every day because there's a one in a [insert name of large number here] chance that it could save lives? My answer so far: not really, but I'm willing to be persuaded on the point.
Furthermore, given the political atmosphere on campuses, lots of people would freak out and think you were crazy, so you've got to figure that into the pain-in-the-ass calculations. A friend of mine once had a plain-clothes cop in a night school class, and the prof and the students were so freaked out when the guy'd get hot and take his jacket off (thus exposing the gun in his shoulder holster), that my friend asked the cop to quit carrying in class. Now that's a fairly high degree of sensitivity--being afraid of armed cops.
At any rate, I certainly hope we can figure out some better solution, since liberalizing concealed-carry laws would, I think, probably do very little to solve this problem, since few people (and very few college professors) will actually avail themselves of the relevant opportunity.
posted by Winston Smith at
4:13 PM
5 Comments:
On this topic, you might wish to read this opinion:
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/008867.html#008867
The odds are astronomically against someone walking into your class and starting to shoot. Flight 93 logic says: don't change your policy unless the circumstances change. Since the people doing this remain extremely rare losers and not a flock of terrorists, you should probably leave the gun at home.
That said, there are some things that would be improvements:
(1) take repeated stories from teachers and classmates at least a little more seriously, at least enough to put a red flag on background checks for firearm purchases.
(2) have a plan.
(3) stop making a big deal at the national level about these things, so that copycats are less likely. It's a tragedy at VT, sure. But the rest of us ghouls don't need to give this action more attention than it rightly deserves.
-mac
mac,many thanks for the link. Another link of interest is Bryan Dumka, at his blog Why Now.
Bryan is an ex-Air Force linguist (riding spy planes just outside of Soviet airspace in the cold war), former law enforcement officer with some very matter-of-fact and pragmatic observations about carrying firearms, both as an individual and in the larger social context.
(A lot of the intereting details are in the comments.)
You know, everyone always says that if someone entered a classroom with a gun and everyone else had guns, that the situation would be resolved quicker because the shooter would be fired upon.
I've always wondered.. if the shooter came in, fired off a bunch of rounds before everyone could get their weapon (which would definitely take a few seconds, at least - more than enough time to kill some people) and left (since he'll absolutely know that others are potentially packing if guns are permitted), if the ensuing chaos wouldn't result in a LOT of friendly-fire casualties.
Think about it - a bunch of people running around in a building with guns visible in their hands after someone just came in firing his weapon? People from other classrooms who heard the shots would have a near-impossible time identifying friend or foe. Can you imagine the chaos? Everyone yelling at everyone else to drop the weapon..
Maybe I'm not seeing how it would be ok, but it seems to me that adding more people with guns = more potential threats seen by others with guns = a LOT of friendly fire incidents = much worse situation.
I was thinking about it further - maybe some rules could be implemented so that everyone would stay in their own respective rooms, and that way anyone who came in would be a threat - but still, people stuck in hallways and those who refuse to listen to those rules while attempting to be heroes by tracking the gunman down.. seems like there'd be at least a few friendly fire casualties. Remember - the military has friendly fire casualties not ridiculously infrequently and they are a trained military organization. I can only suspect that a random group of people who have guns and no combat training would be much, much worse off.
I think you're exaggerating the problems, Mystic.
There's little doubt that a group of people attacked by a shooter would be better off if they were armed. There are things that can go wrong, of course, and some friendly fire is inevitable. There are a few cases in which they'd be worse off for being armed, but that doesn't matter.
In the main, you're better off armed against an attacker than not.
The important point is mac's (which I also make above, incidentally): such incidents are too rare to make it sensible for, e.g., me to carry a gun.
We should worry about diabetes, heart diseas, falling down the stairs, and car wrecks more than we worry about this stuff.
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