Guns on campus and violence prevention centers

When bureaucrats consult other bureaucrats, they intentionally exclude one of the greatest allies they can ever find: citizens who have found a solution that works.

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I have written on how this cocoon of insulation from other viewpoints works adversely to the purpose of violence prevention, and in a recently completed essay I’ve added to my e-book edition of Safe Streets, I put it like this: today’s young generation believes in remaining in its own cocoon comfort zone and hand-wringing more than moving into actual adult safety, and they exhibit this by remarks of dread and by examining everything but the solution that works. For trustees, this is a battle for turf and prestige: control. (What else is new?) For the students on other campuses which affirm the armed student, it is working with a different breed of trustee. Caught in the middle are the students who say one sad thing: We hate to think things have come to the point where we have to wear guns. And this is one of the saddest, most immature roadblocks to your goal of improved campus safety. The avoidance of conflict at all costs, an indoctrination of our kids for years and years now. Indoctrination is a poor substitute for education, and with violence on campus being such a scandal for lack of resistance at all, then the chickens have come home not to roost, but to roast. Students are being tugged in three directions this way: the anti-gun crowd who cares little for safety, the politicos who want to protect their interests and who will punish some students, and the students themselves who would rather turn away from the image of adult independence. And independence is what this is all about, is it not? Thumbnail, more Americans are becoming resentful of bigger government; they are not anti-government, just against bigger and bigger government, and they are becoming increasingly resentful of being labeled as anti-government, militia, and survivalist. I’d watch that term ‘survivalist’ since FOX News did a wonderful piece on how preparedness is becoming very, very popular and how survivalist is a term now proudly worn. It is a rebirth of the spirit of independence. Let’s carry this into fighting crime on campus everywhere. I advocate armed students on campus and anywhere a citizen has a right to be. I advocate affirming the second amendment at various institutions and then publicizing it to put thugs on notice. What makes the armed student on campus such a shrewd move for violence prevention – genuine prevention of violence – is in Safe Streets, but I’ll add another observation for college violence prevention centers: the purpose of college is knowledge, and the independence of adult life you’re going to have to do yourself. This means accepting certain realities, and those colleges affirming concealed carry, those whole states who affirm concealed carry, have all accepted these, and they have shown that it works. True violence prevention must not be held hostage by the politics of protecting turf or job. Bureaucrats consulting bureaucrats summons this. I’ll say this again: I am asked how a Paramedic reconciles the use of deadly force (gun ownership) with the mission of saving lives; the answer is that both save lives. When EMS carries out field multiple patient triage – the sorting of criticality in who gets care first - it is to make a decision for the living. Triage is complex: it is to think simultaneously in real-time and hours in advance, assessing assets as much as criticality, present assets and assets to be likely available in hours. EMS as the first link in the chain of emergency medical services sorts the viable from the dead and dying from the can-wait patient on scene. In triage, the EMS must often look each patient in the eye as much as triaging their physical trauma, make a decision, be prepared to alter that decision as conditions change, and work to save as many as possible with what assets they have in hand. You do the best you can based on a plan, your training, your insight and judgment. It is your call. You are all the patient has for now. Violence is similar to triage: In resisting violence in order to prevent greater violence — or an ultimate violence, a death — one weighs variables like triage does. It’s a plan of preparedness only the mature can make. It is not knee-jerk, it is judgment. It is not reaction, it is response. To avoid the decision of how to resist violence with superior force is to make a decision nevertheless: it is to decide to place oneself at the mercy of the violent – as if thugs have mercy: It is to avoid maturity. To follow the decision to do nothing this way is to shun adult independence. But truly, one is not only at the mercy of thugs, one is also at the mercy of trustees and policy wonks who insist for you on your avoiding the concept of superior force and independence. Independence from them. Dependency – compelled dependency on officials and closing off all exits politically — is what Americans are now resisting. As if violent crime weren’t enough, Americans are now resisting the abuses of power in making more adverse choices for them, and guns on campus are a microcosm of the abuses of powers not granted and denials of rights yet to come. Be sure to register for my Safer Streets Newsletter.