More guns are not going to solve the problem of school shootings
OUR VIEW: School shootings have become a debatable topic and a problem, which President Barack Obama wants to solve. If passed, the filed Senate Bill 182 by Sen. Brian Birdwell (R-Grandbury) on Jan. 17 would allow concealed handgun license holders to carry weapons on public university campuses.
Besides the assumption that most college students are under the age of 21 and are therefore not eligible to own or buy a gun, the purpose of this new law is to offer more protection during emergency situations as they have been occurring in the country.
The logic behind this bill is to prevent further student deaths, if shooters recognized the probability of other armed people in a public facility.
But if most students at a four-year college legally cannot own a gun, it is left to staff and faculty to shoot the ‘crazy person’ who is about to kill his or her fellow students.
The 21-year-olds, who can bear arms as the Second Amendment states, have to take a gun control class to be able to properly care for a weapon. After a seven-day-waiting period a person receives the gun and his or her license.
The procedure does not take into account any mental health tests or psychological evaluations, which are the reasons for the seven-day-waiting period, to prevent the amount of suicides, because hopefully that ‘crazy person’ is going to second-guess him- or herself.
The Wichitan staff has come to the conclusion that hopefully Birdwell is going to second-guess himself as well, because more guns are not going to solve the problem of one gun killing many and many guns killing one.
Despite the fact that one gun in one classroom is spreading enough fear, how will students feel and be able to think during lectures, if the only thing in their head is: “By how many guns am I surrounded right now and where is the nearest exit?”
For the first time in college history, students might actually fight for the seats in the front row.
Birdwell has also not recognized how professors are going to react.
Professors are aware to only provide as much information as needed to separate their work and personal life, because students have taken action against their not-so-much-favorite professors just by finding out where they lived.
After Bill 182, professors will want to sit behind bullet-proved-glass, when talking to their not-so-well-doing students.
Thinking positively about it, the new gun control law will not only provide more security on campus, but also improve the GPA of college students.
The argument that the Second Amendment guarantees American citizens the right to bear arms is debatable. In case the readers need reminding, the text helpfully includes the Second Amendment says, “A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” There are two questions that pop up:
Question 1: Who would define any college campus as ‘a well-regulated militia?’
Question 2: What do school shootings and ‘the security of a free state’ have in common?
There have been reasons to move away from the politics during the Revolutionary War and why there should not be weapons in public facilities.
If the discussion has come up whether or not students, faculty and staff can carry guns on campus to protect themselves, what about churches and shopping malls?
These are also public places where it might not be save enough to walk around without a gun in a jacket pocket, looking at recent religious terrorist attacks or housewives going wild over the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy.
The argument that people should have enough common sense to not shoot each other over religious beliefs or pornographic novels is a valid one, but try to explain that to a person running amok.
University President Jesse Rogers has expressed his firm belief that we cannot defend ourselves against danger by allowing more firearms on campus.
We hope that other Texas university leaders like Rogers will take a stance in Austin against this bill because, in this case, less is more.
Cameron Shaffer • Feb 8, 2013 at 4:08 PM
This wasn’t always the position of the Wichitan. See here: http://issuu.com/msu.wichitan/docs/february_23__2011?mode=window&pageNumber=2
and here: http://issuu.com/msu.wichitan/docs/september_8__2010?mode=window&pageNumber=2
Shoddy journalism on the understanding of the reading of the 2nd amendment. Read up on the Supreme Court cases District of Columbia vs. Heller and McDonald vs. Chicago as well as the decision made by 7th Court of Appeals in Illinois this past December on concealed handgun licenses.
If you still think that is a problem, you should note that five states (Colorado, Mississippi, Oregon, Utah, and Wisconsin) allow concealed handguns on college campuses, and the Colorado Supreme Court ruled last March that all Colorado state schools must allow CHL holders to carry on their campuses, while Oregon and Utah law prohibit colleges from banning them. Those states don’t seem to have problems with mass school shootings.
Michael D Baggs • Jan 31, 2013 at 10:05 AM
Concerning the article, “No Guns on Campus,” published on January 31, 2013. For starters, it is not called a ‘gun control class’ it is referred to as a ‘concealed handgun license.’ Secondly, there is no seven day waiting period in Texas to buy and own a firearm; there is only the processing time of the application for the CHL license. Also, your 2nd Amendment interpretations only demonstrate your lack of knowledge on the subject matter. A reading of the Federalist Papers no.’s 28, 46, 184-188, should clarify the issue. Perhaps, the next time you construct an ‘opinion’ on a matter of a proposed legislation or debate the rationality of a Constitutional Amendment the editorial board should research the issue a little more fully. Notwithstanding your complete lack of knowledge on the subject matter, the opinion piece was poorly constructed, poorly written, and only demonstrated a failure to pay attention in Rhetoric and Composition, American History, and the U.S. Government classes.