Guns on campus is in the news again. In my ongoing series on Guns On Campus, I answer issues that somehow seem to be guesswork on the part of non-gun owner students and trustees. I say this because anti-liberty reasoning sounds like good faith dealings at first, but when assumptions are corrected and excuses run out, trustees play the one card which vexes adults: No guns on campus. This disturbing final maneuver gives credence to the claims of abuses of power as it continues to avoid the practical solution to violence, and that is recognizing the adult student's authority over the violent situation.
The question of guns on campus is more than a right to be regulated and arrived at by discussion; it is a tactical decision to be made by the would-be target of violence, something to be supported by a board interested in student safety. But violence prevention seminars do not divulge the full range of solutions to violence, such as tactical advantages and prevention's specific weaknesses.
Let me give you two examples.
First, when you refuse to own a gun or oppose gun ownership as one for instance, you are making a decision now to remove an option which you may need later. It's like saying you will not fight or could never hurt someone, then later realizing only too late that others love you and would suffer if you were injured or lost because you surrendered. Make no mistake, refusing today to better assure yourself of the upper hand when needed is to surrender today for that battle later. Many converts call this refusing preparedness. So do experienced gun owners.
Second, externalizing safety or delegating it to others such as police takes you out of the equation at the most critical moments; when violence strikes. Gun ownership is not a gun culture concept in this subject, it is a much larger independence culture concept. That is to say, individuals who are by nature independent persons will consider lethal force as an option of theirs on the realization that there is no one else. The independent adult tends to appreciate that there is no one else for a lot of things, and self-defense is only one. People die by refusing to fully appreciate their choices of independence [preparedness] or when they are denied choices by some trustees.
Remember that adult students, like other citizens, have the authority to stop a crime in progress such as their own beating or sexual assault. Trustees opposing self-defense as' fighting' or opposing concealed carry on campus as 'unsafe' actually contribute to the success of every subsequent on-campus assault as the policy becomes well known. For thugs, the coast is clear.
In contrast, if a campus affirms concealed carry of handguns as some campuses do, violent crime has probably already taken a different message and come to appreciate the ever-increasing odds that their target will respond with a resistance that is unacceptable to them.
Many college campuses and whole states have affirmed the concealed carry of handguns and not been given a reason to regret it. When you consider the millions who have concealed carry permits along with those millions who live in states not even requiring a permit, I'd say the preponderance of evidence is in favor of the armed student.
For more, be sure to visit my book page,
NationwideConcealedCarry.comJohn Longenecker——
Bio and Archives
John Longenecker is an author of Safe Streets In The Nationwide Concealed Carry Of Handguns – Meeting Dependency And Violent Crime With American Spirit, Independence, And Citizen Authority [CONTRAST MEDIA PRESS]. Safer Streets Newsletter.
