Concealed Carry on Campus

[Novacastrian]

1) I bet someone at school $10 he would beat Obama.

I made a similar mistake at last years election in Australia, i bet that Liberal would retain power. Fifty apples later i was proven otherwise.
Damn Rudd.

[Hubb]

Of course, I'm all for the idea. The only problem I see with this is that some (most) of the people who would carry the weapons have never had any type of training to deal with such an issue. In other words, the hero may just become another victim. I know if I was shooting up a school and saw someone trying to reach in his pocket or whatever, I would blast him. I would already have my gun out and it would simply be a matter of pointing and pulling.

As I said, I'm all for it, if the carrier is trained to draw his (or her) weapon from his concealed spot under stress.

[jackssmirkingrevenge]

Anyone who spent 5 years in a Vietnamese POW camp and survived would get my vote.

[diamondsnakey]

I would definitley vote yes (unfortunately i dont have 25 posts, so i cant vote.) But think, how often do psychopaths go on random killing sprees? I mean, i'm all for it (responsible adults carrying guns, not Random Acts of Killing) its always good to prepared just in case your life is jeopardy.

[SPG]

Responsible people (that pass the checks, etc...) don't "just snap".

One word "Hungerford"

One of the worst shootings in the UK, carried out by a person with legally purchased fully licensed fire-arms (and remember in the Uk it's a tough thing to get a firearms certificate and ammunition).

it seems that a lot of US recent High School shootings have been carried out by people with legally purchased guns. Ok, so you guys don't need to do anything more than prove you're not married to your sister to buy a gun over there, but they were purchased legally.

If you want to cut down on this type of High School shooting then logically, make it as hard to buy a fire-arm as it is to get a concealed carry permit. If that system is alleged to be able to weed out the likely shooters, then apply it to all gun purchases and you won't have the shooters in the first place, so you won't need tooled up students.

[jackssmirkingrevenge]

If you want to cut down on this type of High School shooting then logically, make it as hard to buy a fire-arm as it is to get a concealed carry permit. If that system is alleged to be able to weed out the likely shooters, then apply it to all gun purchases and you won't have the shooters in the first place, so you won't need tooled up students.

Valid words if there were no illegal weapons on the market, however look at firearm statistics in the UK - post Hungerford, all handguns have been banned and the penalty for carrying illegal weapons is a mandatory 5 year jail term, yet handgun murders have not been reduced, people are killed with submachienguns that have never been legal in the UK. Given the choice, I'd ratherh ave the option of being legally able to protect myself from such an eventuality.

I once heard a southern gentleman claim that "a gun owning society is a polite society", there is some truth to that statement.

Some statistics from wikipedia:

The rise in UK gun crime is a long term trend that is apparently unaffected by the state of UK firearms legislation. [22] Before the 1997 ban, handguns were only held by 0.1% of the population,[23] and while the number of crimes involving firearms in England and Wales increased from 13,874 in 1998/99 to 24,070 in 2002/03, they remained relatively static at 24,094 in 2003/04, and have since fallen to 21,521 in 2005/06. The latter includes 3,275 crimes involving imitation firearms and 10,437 involving air weapons, compared to 566 and 8,665 respectively in 1998/99.[24] Only those "firearms" positively identified as being imitations or air weapons (e.g. by being recovered by the police or by being fired) are classed as such, so the actual numbers are likely to be significantly higher. In 2005/06, 8,978 of the total of 21,521 firearms crimes (42%) were for criminal damage.[25]

Since 1998, the number of people injured by firearms in England and Wales increased by 110%,[26] from 2,378 in 1998/99 to 5,001 in 2005/06. "Injury" in this context means by the use of the gun as a blunt instrument or as a threat, or by being shot. In 2005/06, 87% of such injuries were defined as "slight," which includes the use of firearms as a threat only. The number of homicides committed with firearms has remained between a range of 46 and 97 for the past decade, standing at 50 in 2005/06 (a fall from 75 the previous year). Between 1998/99 and 2005/06, there have been only two fatal shootings of police officers in England and Wales. Over the same period there were 107 non-fatal shootings of police officers - an average of just 9.7 per year.[27]

[Sticky_Tape]

I think I would chose concealed carry on campus. But do you know what I don't like how one person shoots people and then all of these laws come up and everybody else is affected by them. And I also don't like how a perfectly health in the head person I'm in canada would kill someone and they would go to jail for 25 years but then somebody who is wack kills someone but they get off the hook for being wack I mean If he could kill someone one time he could do it again right I think anybody who kills or attempts to kill someone should be executed. Oh and what about those rapists out there they olny need 10 months in jail because they didn't scar somebody for life or anything ya know. I think the whole system is S**T

[SPG]

Oh JSR, I'm not saying it'd weed out everyone, and the UK's gun laws I think are totally ludicrous, what they did by and large was remove the guns from the law abiding individuals and did next to nothing about the illegally held guns.

However I'm sure anyone in favour of concealed carry (with a permit) would be happy if everyone had to go through some form of training and vetting in order to purchase a gun. If you can buy one with a can of beans, so you can go shoot people up, do you care whether you've got a permit for concealed carry or not. So I'd make it harder to legally purchase a gun (but still a right).

Three things that spring to mind:

What age would you allow concealed carry? If it is the same age or younger than legal drinking, then you have no way of knowing what that person will be like around alcohol. You might be a good law abiding boy at home, go to college and find booze and completely lose your head.

How would you police the permit system in a college? I've heard that more and more schools are installing metal detectors to pick up knives and guns. If you've got a bunch of licenced tooled up individuals it's going to be a logistical nightmare to allow them to pass.

Safe storage. College campuses are not known for their high security, people can wander in and out quite easily and rooms aren't really that secure. How would you provide gun owners with safe storage of their fireamrs when they are not on their person? What investment wuould you need to make and who would pay?

[Ragnarok]

A large part of the problem in America are the huge number of guns already in private ownership, and vast opposition to gun control.

These two factors make trying to "clean up" guns in America incredibly tough.
- Firstly, anyone who wants to increase gun control will have a hard time getting into a position of power that will allow that to happen.
-Secondly, there are so many guns that you'll never track down all of them.

In the UK, the government taking such steps was quite easy. Just the Dunblane massacre (and a few other things) to rouse the general population against firearms, and few gun owners to oppose the changes, and not too many guns to find. Admittedly, it hasn't entirely worked, as there are still guns getting into the wrong hands, but as JSR quoted, only 1 in a thousand had handguns, and that slim chance was hardly ever likely to deter any criminal.

I'm all behind firearms for recreational use - it's why I build spudguns.
But for concealed carry and self defence - if I'm entirely honest, I wouldn't trust myself in those circumstances, because I know I can snap severely. It wouldn't show on any psychological assessment, but it could still be dangerous.
If I can't trust myself, why should I trust anyone else?

However, it's hard to ignore the number of school shootings. It's a group of densely packed and unarmed people - put guns in the hands of that group, it becomes less appealing.

But I think there is a huge flaw in the plan. Allow college students to have guns, and do you think the gunmen will still go there?

No, of course not. They'll find a school of younger and unarmed children. Concealed carry will not stop attacks, it will move them on to new targets - and it's quite a morbid fact, but a college student is much more likely to survive being shot than a younger child.

Sure, your concealed arm may stop you getting shot, but not because you can use it to take out the gunman - instead of you getting shot, it'll be a couple of dead 8 year olds down the road.

For those reasons, it's not anything I believe I can support. To be entirely truthful, if I were forced to decide who were shot, between a college student who might survive, and a younger child who probably won't (and has had a much shorter life) - I think the choice, if difficult and very grim, can only be made the one way.

If you support it, that's your choice, but make sure you realise it won't help stop shootings, but most likely increase their death toll.

In a certain irony, "I don't like Mondays" just came up on my music player.

[paaiyan]

I responded to this on theopia, but I'll post it again here.

I definitely agree with you pete. That's my biggest point as well, the criminals are going to carry the guns one way or the other. This fact has already been established many, many times. Guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people. I personally carry my knife with me on campus all the time. I use it at home working on things and don't even think about it usually. Heck, I even pull it out to pick out a splinter or shave my fingernails down a bit in class and I've yet to meet anyone who cares.

The fact of the matter is, these things are going to happen one way or the other, no gun law is going to change these things. Why not give the law-abiding citizens a way to fight back. Obviously there should be some registration with the school. The school, I think, does have a right to know who's carrying. But there is no doubt in my mind that had there been someone at V-Tech or NIU who'd had a concealed handgun, these tragedies could have been halted early, or even prevented.

I turn 20 in March, so I have a bit before I can get a CC license, but I plan on doing it as soon as I can. .45 hollowpoint FTW!

As for the argument about guys going to an elementary school. I say nay. The V-Tech shooter (Cho?) shot up the school because he pretty much hated them all. He went there for a reason, not randomly. At NIU, nobody really knows why he did it, but he was an alum if I remember correctly. He probabyl had a reason to go there. Most of these shootings are perpetrated by students, or former students, of that school. They aren't random. These people aren't going to think well, I think I'll go shoot up an elementary school, because I remember Johnny carried.

Almost all of the college shootings I looked up just now were premeditated and the shooter had a reason to go there. I think the argument about grade schools gettign shot up is a little ridiculous.

[Ragnarok]

Almost all of the college shootings I looked up just now were premeditated and the shooter had a reason to go there. I think the argument about grade schools gettign shot up is a little ridiculous.

You're being a little short-sighted.
All though recently lot of shootings have been in colleges and universities, that has not been the case in the past, where younger schools were a heavy target. Not every gunman has an intimate link to where they'll go and shoot.

Whatever you say, I don't think concealed carry will help. If people want to go out and take people with them, they will do it whatever. If students have guns, they'll switch to bombs or explosives, and blow themselves or parts of the location up instead, where you get no warning at all.

I doubt we'd see reductions in casualties if concealed carry were introduced on campuses. Maybe less per incident, but I think that there might even be more incidents.
Obviously, I have no say in the matter, but I think that making it easier to get guns on to campus is a poor choice. If some people are allowed to do it, then others will be able to slip through more easily.

Not to mention the possibility that a legal carrier could flip in some manner. Not probable, but possible.

[paaiyan]

Most gunmen will not just randomly decide to shoot someone. They have a reason.

And I don't understand what you mean by this. [quote=Ragnarok]If some people are allowed to do it, then others will be able to slip through more easily.[/quote]

If someone wants to get on a campus with a gun, they can do it. This is obvious. If someone wants to get a gun on campus, they can do it, whether I have one or not. It doesn't matter if you allow CC on campus or not, the guns will get there if people want them there.

http://www.cafepress.com/sccc_gfz.178973314

[SPG]

Bugger, well I'm not typing it up again, I just spent a good long time with Google, looking up various school killings, These went all the way back to the Bath School Disaster of 1927, through Cleveland Elemntary, Dunblane, Colombine, to Crandon and Virginia Tech in 2007, an 80 year span.

In one case the perpetrator was also both a full-time deputy in the Forest County Sheriff's Department and a part-time officer at the local Police Department. In another the killer used a gun given to her by her father. In every case the perpetrators used weapons purchased legally.

Doesn't this tell you something?



PS.

"Who ever said the pen was mightier than the sword, obviously, never encountered automatic weapons."

-General DouglasMacArthur

What crap, with an automatic weapon you can only kill people, with a pen you can declare peace.

[jackssmirkingrevenge]

I'm happy to put up with the inconvenience of a licensing system safe in the knowledge that not anyone can just buy a gun, some sort of regulation is in order. Also, the thought that if I do something stupid with them, I could have my guns taken away from me, makes me a more responsible owner.

If someone had to take them away from me because of the off-chance that I would one day snap, I would be very upset. Would you take away my car because I might one day ram into a crowd of people at 80 miles per hour, for whatever reason?

What crap, with an automatic weapon you can only kill people, with a pen you can declare peace.

With an automatic weapon you could kill all your enemies, et voila, peace

[Ragnarok]

Most gunmen will not just randomly decide to shoot someone. They have a reason.

Nobody does something without a reason, but a warped mind can choose any reason it wants.

And I don't understand what you mean by this.

If some people are allowed to do it, then others will be able to slip through more easily.

If some people are allowed concealed carry, that is a weakness that can be exploited by people with poor intent.

To use a mildly humourous example: I am a school principal - Now, I decide to ban people from having cell phones on the site - for various reasons - they ring in lessons, they can be used to cheat on tests...

Now, there are occasional checks to make sure this is enforced. People are spot-checked for phones, and if they're found to have one, it's confiscated until the end of the week.

However, some people say: "Hey, we're allowed to have phones offsite".
So, I say, "Oh, all right then - those of you over 18 who have phones may bring them on-site, but you're not allowed to switch them on except in an emergency."

What I now have is a difficulty. It becomes harder to enforce the rule for other people - if I find someone with a phone, it will take time to check if they're allowed it on-site, etc, etc.
You'll find people who leave it on, and all sorts.

This weakness in the system makes it easier for people who aren't supposed to have phones to have them.
If you see my (rather odd) point - the moment some people are allowed them, it delays what happens if others are not supposed to have them.

To cut that bizarre explanation short, firearms are not mystical things that immediately kill people that get shot with them. With a well aimed shot, yes (possibly) , but in that situation, do you think you'll have the time and calm to make that well aimed shot before the attacker sees you?
It's more than possible for someone who has been shot - particularly if they're under the effects of adrenaline - to keep moving for some time. More than enough time to shoot more people. Oh, you might stop them doing it another day, but they themselves will do that eventually.

Also, do you think if you go for your gun, there is no chance you'll be spotted doing so and shot at first?

It's your decision, but I think it will create weaknesses that can be exploited, not help reduce fatalities, possibly create "friendly fire" and most likely increase the chance you yourself will get shot.

I think SPG's point is right. If you have tests that make it so sure that a concealed carrier won't shoot someone with it, why aren't those tests be applied to everyone who tries to buy a gun?

If they're that great, surely they would have stopped the shootings at VA Tech - where I know the guns were purchased legally.

Don't misunderstand me, I think that guns for recreational use are fine, but in a defensive situation, they're not quite as incredible as TV and film would have you believe.

Jack's point is fine - I would be quite happy to go through a series of tests if I wanted a firearm, knowing that those tests meant that the chance of a poor candidate for gun ownership getting his hands on firearms was heavily reduced.

A few points about the car/gun comparison:
1) The primary purpose of a gun is to kill - not what the car is designed for.
2) A speeding car is more noticeable and easier to avoid than a hidden gun.
3) There aren't a lot of car related massacres.