Self Defense is a Basic Human Right
I have children, and like most parents I love them more than Life itself. One is a Marine in Iraq, the other is home with me and his mother.
Both know how to handle firearms. The Marine is a marksman with several ribbons and medals bearing proof of his skill; the youngest picked up his first gun a month ago.
The campus shootings in Illinois prove the danger of relying upon others for one’s own safety. Had one member in the class had a weapon to shoot back, the odds are good that the shooter would have killed fewer than the six he got away with before taking his own life.
Guns are not “magic”; they are not inherently good or evil. They are simply tools that can be used to protect or to kill. By banning them on college campuses they in effect create a model for our society in which guns are banned: the law-abiding students do not have guns to protect themselves while the psychopath doesn’t care that s/he is breaking the law. The result is that the murderer gets to choose how many people he kills, as well as leaving him/her in control of when and how his/her life is taken.
Self-defense is a basic human right; by taking away that right the authorities may not be blamed directly for the massacre, but they do contribute to its severity.
Jack Snyder:
Scott,
I find your argument against campuses banning guns a bit simplistic. The solution to an armed young person firing a gun into a crowd of panicked young people is more complex than just throwing more guns into the mix. Could another armed student firing back stopped the gunman and saved lives? Possibly. Could another armed student firing back accidentally killed more innocent students in their nervousness and fear? Possibly and more likely. Keep in mind: The gunman doesn’t care that he might die, the defending student does.
You state about guns: By banning them on college campuses they in effect create a model for our society in which guns are banned: the law-abiding students do not have guns to protect themselves while the psychopath doesn’t care that s/he is breaking the law.
Everybody’s a law-abiding citizen until the day they’re not. The NIU student was a law-abiding citizen with a history of psychological problems (that he worked hard to hide) but no criminal record. And being a law-abiding citizen, he bought the guns quite legally shortly before the incident.
This is a quote from one of his professors: “Steve was the most gentle, quiet guy in the world. ... He had a passion for helping people,” said Jim Thomas, an emeritus professor of sociology and criminology at Northern Illinois who taught Kazmierczak, promoted him to a teacher’s aide and became his friend.
He sounds like a great guy! The kind of “law-abiding citizen” that one might feel more safe if you knew he was walking around the campus armed. The kind of guy you knew would have your back when the psychopath comes on campus with guns-a-blazin’.
Though college students are considered adults, they’re still just kids; with many of them angst-filled I have first-hand experience with this on multiple levels.
From the late ‘80’s through the late ‘90’s, I was a vendor for several area colleges and in that capacity I saw several hundred student films over the years. Many of these films were about anger and suicide; clearly the product of angst-filled young adults.
Currently, I teach at a local university and, trust me, having an armed student body would be a bad idea. The last thing I want is to be an instructor on a campus with a conceal/carry policy and give a low grade to an armed student who’s having a bad day.
I understand your frustration at these campus shootings which are clearly becoming more frequent. But being one who works at a university and observes student behavior, I clearly see they are more kids than adults and I don’t think arming them would be the solution.
16 February 2008, 10:24 amScott Kirwin:
Jack
That puts you at odds with Glenn Reynolds who also is an academic.
Police can’t be everywhere, and as incidents from Columbine to Virginia Tech demonstrate, by the time they show up at a mass shooting, it’s usually too late. On the other hand, one group of people is, by definition, always on the scene: the victims. Only if they’re armed, they may wind up not being victims at all.
“Gun-free zones” are premised on a fantasy: That murderers will follow rules, and that people like my student, or Bradford Wiles, are a greater danger to those around them than crazed killers like Cho Seung-hui. That’s an insult. Sometimes, it’s a deadly one.
So if campus gun bans don’t stop shooters, then what will? Banning them from society – which has been so successful with marijuana and crack cocaine? Psychopaths gravitate towards easy targets; they don’t shoot up police stations or gun shows where they know a majority of participants will be armed. They may be deranged, but they usually have it together enough to know that to be successful they have to target those who are defenseless.
16 February 2008, 10:34 amJack Snyder:
Scott,
Mr. Reynolds uses only three examples and one of those is a student stopping a shooter. That’s anecdotal evidence; no more pertinent than taking a drug off the market because one person dies from the side effects.
Listen to the spin that you and he use: Psychopaths/murderers/crazed killers.
I stand by what I wrote: Everyone is a law-abiding citizen until they’re not!
You write: So if campus gun bans don’t stop shooters, then what will?
You and Mr. Reynolds are looking for a simple solution to this problem. Did it ever occur to you that some of life’s problems have very difficult solutions? What about high-schools like Columbine? In addition to arming college students, should we allow high-school teenagers the right to go to school with concealed firearms? How about grade school? What’s your’s and Mr. Reynold’s solutions for those?
16 February 2008, 11:10 amJack Snyder:
Scott,
I wanted to add something else.
You write: Psychopaths gravitate towards easy targets; they don’t shoot up police stations or gun shows where they know a majority of participants will be armed. They may be deranged, but they usually have it together enough to know that to be successful they have to target those who are defenseless.
Tell that to the people of Kirkwood, Missouri. That shooter shot up a city hall crawling with police officers. He announced his intentions before he even entered the front door. He ran across the parking lot, gun in hand, shouting, “Shoot the Mayor!”
He made it inside, killed two police officers, two councilman, and put two bullets in the Mayor’s head before he was gunned down. If someone is willing to die, they are very hard to stop quickly.
No one could argue that there wasn’t enough guns in the room on that day.
16 February 2008, 11:30 amligneus:
So Jack Snyder in typical lefty/intellectual fashion thinks this is a very complex problem. No it isn’t. Sometimes you will get some idiot get hold of a gun and set out to kill people. He will most likely choose an unarmed and defenceless group, I’ll agree that knowing that there are a few armed people around might not deter him, I know also that you’re not going to be able to head him off at the pass, which leaves the only way he can be stopped which is by someone else with a gun as happened at that shopping mall recently when a woman, trained in handling firearms, put a stop to a killing spree. What’s so complex about that?
It would save lives, Jack.
It would save lives, Jack.
It would save lives, Jack.
Got it yet?
16 February 2008, 12:11 pmJack Snyder:
Ligneus,
I’m not a lefty and I absolutely support the right to owning handguns. I find it interesting that if anyone criticizes arming people in every situation as a solution to violence, they are automatically a leftist.
I’m all for the right to bear arms and conceal/carry; its right here in my own state and I don’t have a problem with it. I believe its an absolute deterrent to crime when dealing with someone who wants to get away alive. But when faced with someone on a suicidal killing spree, its a different situation all together.
And arming students is not the solution to school shootings. I noticed that neither you nor Scott has addressed what to do in the case of high-schools or grade schools. Should we arm those students too? Arm children and teenagers?
The fact of the matter is if someone is armed and goes on a suicidal killing spree with the goal of dying at the end, that person is very hard to stop. I noticed neither you nor Scott addressed the Kirkwood Missouri example I gave; I’m sure you heard of it as it was on the national news.
The man loudly announced his plans as he entered the building with police all around and still managed to kill four people, including two police officers, and put two bullets in the Mayor’s head before being gunned down. The Mayor is in critical condition. If he would’ve killed the Mayor (who still might die) this shooter would’ve killed the exact same amount of people as the NIU shooter. And it happened amongst many armed adults; adults trained in how to use handguns.
Arming people to the teeth is no more a solution than banning handguns. It is far more complex than you think it is.
16 February 2008, 4:11 pmligneus:
In high schools or grade schools teachers and other responsible adults could be armed. In the case of the Kirkwood example, sure he got away with killing some people, no one said having armed people around was a sure fire way of preventing killings but it does give the means of stopping it rather than letting the assailant continue until he figured he’d done enough, and how many more might have died at Kirkwood had he not been shot at some point. “Arming people to the teeth” also is over the top rhetoric, haviing a few trained responsible people carrying firearms is like having a fire extinguisher handy in case of fire. I don’t see what’s complex about that. It’s simple common sense. I did say that it wasn’t necessarily a deterrent in these cases, it’s more a matter of limiting the damage as far as possible, nor did I say it’s a ‘solution to violence’, see note about fire extinguisher. I’m sorry I assumed you were a lefty but given what you wrote it is a normal assumption to make.
16 February 2008, 6:23 pmScott Kirwin:
Jack
Of course I followed the Kirkwood shooting. I used to deliver pizza there while working for Joe M., remember? Isn’t Imos where Pantera’s was?
As for the shooting itself, I agree with Ligneus’s comment that “how many more might have died at Kirkwood had he not been shot at some point?”
I do agree with you though that the problem is complex. The motivations behind the Northern Illinois shootings, the Kirkwood shooting, and Columbine were all different. But isn’t the knee-jerk reaction to ban guns – whether on campus or in society equally as simplistic?
As for High Schools and grade schools, I’d like to see police on-site; I view the use of guns by non-professionals to be a stop-gap only when police are not around, and in those cases the police need to be there. Then it becomes a resource issue, which in turn becomes a tax issue.
16 February 2008, 9:21 pmJack Snyder:
Scott and Ligneus,
I agree that having armed teachers could prevent more lose of life in school shootings. And since universities also have armed campus police, the armed professor would be an additional safety measure.
All I’m saying is that in the highly emotional aftermath of a tragedy such as a school shooting, suggesting that throwing more handguns in the mix is the solution is as simplistic as suggesting that all handguns should be banned.
Statistically speaking we know that the suicide rate is very high amongst high school students and younger college students. That would indicate, to me anyway, that we’re dealing with a population that has a more volatile emotional state per capita than the general public. I think that arming this population as a matter of course in the rare event of a school shooting could (and in my opinion most probably would) lead to more trouble than it prevents.
That’s all I’m saying, I’m not anti-handgun at all. Like Scott said, a handgun is a tool, nothing more. I’m sure that there are many situations where having more handguns has prevented tragedy and situations where having more handguns has caused or escalated tragedy.
Like I said, I think its one of life’s many complex issues that will never have a cut and dried easy answer.
17 February 2008, 9:19 amligneus:
Agreed that young people generally are somewhat more emotional than older people, but we’re not talking about ‘arming the population’ or just ‘throwing more hand guns into the mix’. From this article in Newsweek:
17 February 2008, 9:36 amWe’re talking about licensed individuals age 21 and above, in most states, who have gone through extensive background checks, training, testing, etc. Basically, these are the same individuals who are licensed to carry in virtually all other unsecured locations in these states.
Scott Kirwin:
Ligneus
I’m all for training – but that’s not a requirement to actually buy a gun – just for Conceal/Carry (at least in my state). I’m not sure the NRA would support legislation mandating passing a safety test before buying a gun – like what we have with driving a car.
Of course driving is a privilege: owning a gun is a right.
17 February 2008, 9:52 amligneus:
As a bit of a libertarian [not a Libertarian] I would not have an issue with mandated training in firearm use before being allowed a permit, I’m surprised that isn’t the case now.
17 February 2008, 2:06 pm