In response to "Opinions: Aw Shoot"

In response to "Opinions: Aw Shoot", published on Thursday, January 31, 2008 in the ASU Sun Devil paper, an opinion piece they wrote in opposition to Arizona SB 1214 - a law being considered in the Arizona Senate that would decriminalize the act of CCW permit holders carrying concealed weapons on school grounds.

"Come on, fighting school gun violence with more guns? That's like fighting terrorism by adding more terrorists"

Sorry, no link there. It would be far more accurate to say that fighting violent people with guns is like fighting violent terrorists with guns. Nothing wrong with that, I know I would prefer to take on terrorists while I'm armed vs being empty handed. Where we have the problem is where good citizens are disarmed & left empty handed to fight against armed mad men, rapists, or other criminals. Some students are highly trained in martial arts. Perhaps some of them may be able to get the upper hand against an armed or even unarmed robber or rapist with enough element of surprise or perhaps not. At VT everyone that tried to take the armed madman on with their bare hands paid with their lives as did those that simply hid behind their desks waiting for their demise. There are simply poor odds when your only option is to bring your bare hands to a gun or knife fight.

"Yes, National Rifle Association, you're right … guns don't kill people, people kill people. But they sure seem to do it with guns."

Yes sometimes bad people kill people with guns, sometimes with knives, other times with baseball bats or automobiles. Sorry to break the news to you but yes there are bad people in this world who want to kill, murder, rape, drive drunk, & plunder with whatever tools are at their disposal. They will always have weapons. Look at Washington DC where handguns have been banned for the last 30 years. The only people with handguns in Washington DC are the Police & the criminals, and as a result it is the murder capital of the world where criminals have no fear of armed resistance from their victims & it is actually newsworthy when they go a couple of days in a row with no reported murders (no joke - I once read an article from Washington DC that they had a 2 day weekend that was amazingly murder free).

"guns on campus could frighten younger children in a place they should feel safe"

Feeling safe & being safe are not the same thing. Besides that, what part of concealed don't you understand? The children will be able to feel safe by not seeing or knowing about the weapon their teacher has, and even better than that, they will actually BE much more safe than they were before. It is far better to BE safe than to FEEL safe. Utah is a state that does not ban concealed weapons on school grounds & there have been zero issues there.

"police will have a harder time responding to a crisis with more random gun-toting folks on the scene"

This is a common argument by opponents of ending gun free zones but it has zero basis in fact. The truth is that the gunfight will most likely be long since over by the time Police arrive as most gun fights last less than a minute. Either the armed citizen will be on the ground in critical condition or the crazy guy will be on the ground either in critical condition or simply held for the Police. It is also possible although unlikely that the Police could arrive during the gun fight. In any of these situations the Police will arrive & will order everyone to drop their weapons. The good citizens will do as ordered. The bad guy will not drop his gun & will either shoot himself or will begin a gun fight with the Police. All Police officers are well trained in the fact that simply having a gun does not make you the "bad guy" - they always have to be on the lookout for off-duty Police officers, undercover Police Officers who have worked very hard to look like a common criminal, and armed citizens.

"most schools already have an armed officer on site"

Many Colleges do, but most K-12 schools do not. Glendale Community College for example only recently armed their security officers - last year the only thing on their tool belt was Pepper Spray & a radio. Even if there is armed security, what good did it do the Columbine students to have an armed Security Guard on campus? The guard there simply stayed in the parking lot & waited for Police to arrive. Armed campus police didn't do VT victims much good either as the Police stood outside & didn't end up heading in until the shooting was already over. VT Police Chief Wendell Flinchum even stated: "We obviously can't have an armed guard in front of every classroom every day of the year."

An even greater risk to college students is rape. According to the FBI there were 2,006 & 1,941 REPORTED cases of forcable rape in Arizona in the year 2005 & 2006 respectively, which does not even include statutory rapes, rapes that end in death, nor the rapes that go unreported. If my daughter is ever attacked by a rapist while on campus I want her to have the option at her disposal to end the attack by aiming her gun at the guy & either shooting him or watching him run away (98% of self defense cases with a gun don't require a single gunshot - criminals usually prefer to live). I don't want it to end with him using her body before killing her to avoid leaving behind a witness.

"Under this proposal, 23-year-old Seung-Hui Cho, the mass murderer in the Virginia Tech shootings, would have been acting within the law until he pulled the trigger."

Actually he would have been outside the law the moment he drew his weapon from its concealed location (it is called assault with a deadly weapon & is a Felony with Prison time) but what difference does that make? He broke the gun free zone rule for months & still committed his murder rampage (breaking the don't murder people law). The only people disarmed by the gun free zone rule were the helpless victims that he was able to murder without resistance thanks to the fact that VT had already disarmed all of them in an effort to make students & parents FEEL safe.

Any suicidal murderer is going to care less about a gun free zone rule other than the fact that they will seek them out in order to attack a location where they know there will be no armed opposition. After all, why would a crazed murderer be worried about going to jail for breaking the current law against having guns on campus when he or she is planning on ending up in a grave when the task is complete anyway? How about we simply have a law against using any weapon or even bare hands to assault, rob, rape, or murder people. Wait, we already have that. As a society we should not rob our 21 yr or older adult students & teachers of their God given right to have an effective tool for self defense, and today a gun is the most effective tool.

This isn't about guns people, it's about FREEDOM & our right to defend ourselves! May God Bless America, and may America forever stay free!

Update: Other responses to the same article can be found here & here.