Texas college campuses are set to turn into the Wild Wild West if the lege allows students and teachers to carry firearms. Supporters claim that the relatively recent shootings at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois would not have been as bad were students capable of firing back on the assailants. However, a Virginia Tech survivor, who was shot four times, disagrees. “People tell me that if they would have been there, they would have shot that guy –– that offends me,” Colin Goddard tells The Associated Press. “People want to be the hero, I understand that. They play video games, and they think they understand the reality. It’s nothing like that.”
And we all know that just about anyone –– no matter how nucking futs or demented –– can get a gun. And if the crazies are packing heat in class and are perhaps seated in the same room as some vigilante types, well, the fireworks are not going to be limited to only attacker(s) and defender(s). Mix in some alcohol, broken hearts, “unfair” teachers, and hormones, and you’re just asking for trouble.
We can’t become a police state, especially a citizen-policed state. Violence is one of the downsides of living in a free, non-self-policed society –– some pundits have said that injuries or deaths from violence amount to “collateral damage,” a price for freedom, so to speak. In any language, the answer isn’t allowing everyone to bear arms. The answer is developing the social infrastructure to identify and treat the mentally unstable or violent. But politics is a short-sighted game. There isn’t an American politician alive who can think past his or her own next election. So we get short-term solutions to timeless problems.
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If all goes as planned, University students and professors in Texas will soon have the right to carry concealed firearms on campus. This bill was co-authored by more than half of the Texas House members, and is supported by Republican Governor, Rick Perry. This measure seems absurd to many Americans; Especially those of us quick to regard this undertaking as a result of Texans merely being obsessed with their right to bear arms. However, at a second glance, it seems that Texas might be thinking more progressively with this measure than most cynics give the Lone Star state credit for.
Statistics show that campus violence across the country has risen dramatically in the past twenty years, and there is no insightful evidence as to why. Since 1980, the number of violent acts reported on University campus’s across the nation has more than doubled. Without the option of eliminating the direct cause of tragedies such as the Virginia Tech shooting, the only option seems to be to play a strong defense. This law would not change the existing laws and standards required for one to carry a gun legally in Texas, it would merely permit those licensed to carry a concealed firearm to exercise that right on campus. Despite cynics understanding of this new reality, kids aren’t going to be skipping through campus twirling guns.
In contrast, it seems rational to believe that someone plotting to execute a campus shooting might be less prone to do so on a campus where the student body and staff might be armed. The counter argument is that many kids who plan to shoot up schools are suicidal anyway, so the threat of others having guns would not make a difference. The problem with that point of view is that it dismisses the fact that the students who have been suicidal shooters have been described as suicidal only after they had killed themselves. In other words, the students who plot school shootings are undoubtably mentally troubled, however it is impossible to claim that these students were necessarily suicidal before they had followed through with the shootings. Had the circumstances been different, and the students had not followed through with their shootings, those students might also still be alive, possibly receiving therapy and counseling. Different blogs throughout the web flood with students claiming the Virginia Tech massacre could have been prevented if students had been aloud to carry guns on campus, instead of having to wait for police intervention. Think about if only three people were killed that day, as opposed to thirty three.
The right to defend one’s self in case of danger should never be something that is hindered by government policy. It also seems rational to believe that harassment and assault rates on campuses would decline as more states allowed licensed students and professors to carry arms on campus. The unexplored pros of this new policy could be endless, stemming even to a decrease in suicide among harassed University-aged students. The point is, you don’t know until you try.
The other option is to endorse the same tactics of violence prevention on campuses that we’ve been endorsing as a nation, and to hope for different results- which is the definition of insanity.
The result of this bill, if passed, will be the same scenario as the right-to-carry law passed under Bush – carnage & bloodshed!!
Oh, wait…
The reality gun proponents never acknowledge is that 5 seconds before becoming a “crazy shooter”, would be assassins are just people exercising their Second amendment right. The bad guy was a good guy. Texas, one of the worst SAT performer in the nation, should focus on improving school, not fill them with guns.
Take away their cars and booze, that’s where the real danger lies with these youths
So, when the police are called to intervene, and they arrive to find 20 students with drawn guns, how can they tell the good guys from the bad? By the color of their hats?
Of course, all the good lguys will be wearing white hats.
Allowing concealed handguns on college campuses is one of gthe stupider ideas to come out of the Texas Legislature.
Thid id onr ogthe stupider ideas to have come out of the Texa Legislagture in years.
The next most stupid thing would be to pass such aidioddddddddddddtic bill.
The only thing wose than havind youdr child killed by a cazy shooter ould be fo that child to be killrded by a delusionaldunal gun cccarryindg fellow student.