Should College Campuses Allow Students To Carry Guns?

g under p
g under p Surfing The far side of THE Sombrero Galaxy Posts: 18,254
edited April 2009 in A Moving Train
From Democracy Now today:
AMY GOODMAN: April marks the anniversaries of both the Columbine High School and Virginia Tech massacres. They took place on April 20, 1999, and April 16, 2007.


Well, Republican state legislators in Texas are using the example of these massacres to push for a bill that would allow college students with concealed handgun permits to carry firearms on campus. They claim allowing responsible students and professors to secretly carry weapons will avoid a repeat of such massacres in Texas and make university campuses safer.


If the bill is approved during this legislative session, Texas will become the second state in the country, after Utah, that allows guns on campuses. In the past two years, nineteen other states rejected similar proposals.


My next guest is among those opposing the bill. He was a student at Virginia Tech during the 2007 shooting that killed thirty-three people. John Woods lost his girlfriend in that massacre. He’s now a graduate student at the University of Texas in Austin and a member of the Students for Gun-Free Schools. He joins us here in Austin.


Welcome, John. Condolences on losing your girlfriend in the massacre at Virginia Tech. Your thoughts then and now today with the Texas legislature taking up the issue of concealed weapons, so students at your school, at UT, could carry them?


JOHN WOODS: Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me on your program. And welcome to Austin. We’re excited to have you here at the University of Texas.


You know, our thoughts are mostly that students don’t want guns on campus. And this is, I think, something that’s actually being pushed by both Republicans and some Democrats. You know, Texas is sort of a very gun-friendly state.


But my principal concern beyond that, just on a personal level, has been that they’ve been marketing this issue with the Virginia Tech shooting. And I think that’s based on a misunderstanding of what actually happened in there. They haven’t—you know, they haven’t asked any survivors, or they haven’t even read the Virginia Tech Review Panel report, which, you know, recommends against allowing guns on campus. And every survivor that I’ve spoken to has said that guns would not have helped, that it happened too quickly.

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/4/29/e ... speaks_out

Even on my college of Hampton University their has been a shooting, can such a law in Texas prevent such crimes on college campuses around the country?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyEwQrV1sN0

Peace
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*MUSIC IS the expression of EMOTION.....and that POLITICS IS merely the DECOY of PERCEPTION*
.....song_Music & Politics....Michael Franti

*The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite INSANE*....Nikola Tesla(a man who shaped our world of electricity with his futuristic inventions)


Post edited by Unknown User on

Comments

  • mickeyrat
    mickeyrat Posts: 45,640
    less experienced young adults+ lot of alcohol+guns = bad news.
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  • CHANGEinWAVES
    CHANGEinWAVES Posts: 10,169
    no
    "I'm not present, I'm a drug that makes you dream"
  • WaveCameCrashin
    WaveCameCrashin Posts: 2,929
    If the student passed a background check, had to take a rigorous concealed weapons class,No one under 18, psychological evaluation,and they could only have in there possession a smart gun. Meaning-- that gun could only be fired by the gun owner. Then yeah Im all for for it.
  • mca47
    mca47 Posts: 13,352
    No!

    I am not far out of college and that would be a horrible, horrible, horrible idea!
  • Cinnamon Girl
    Cinnamon Girl Posts: 1,854
    ummm....no.
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  • soulsinging
    soulsinging Posts: 13,202
    Depends on the college.

    It's time we moved past this "one-rule fits all" approach to gun control.

    NRA folks... things are different on the south side of Chicago from the way they are in your town of 400 people in Bumfuck, Michigan. We need to keep guns the hell out of the city and flooding more guns onto the streets is not going to solve the problem of urban violence no matter what nonsense you say.

    Brady Law folks... guns are not inherently evil. It's part of the culture and a legit tool in many areas of the country. Unlike your usual urban gang-bangers or psycho white kids, many people in rural areas can buy, carry, and posses guns without running drive bys on schools or waltzing into a mall to shoot everyone up.

    Why would you want to apply the same solutions and sets of rules to parts of the country that are socially and culturally completely different?
  • Wobbie
    Wobbie Posts: 31,835
    I think at Florida State they're already doing it.

    Athletes, at least. :mrgreen:
    If I had known then what I know now...

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  • norm
    norm Posts: 31,146
    edited April 2009
    that would take hazing to a whole other level

    :roll:
    Post edited by norm on
  • Wobbie
    Wobbie Posts: 31,835
    norm wrote:
    that would take having to a whole other level

    :roll:
    hazing?
    If I had known then what I know now...

    Vegas 93, Vegas 98, Vegas 00 (10 year show), Vegas 03, Vegas 06
    VIC 07
    EV LA1 08
    Seattle1 09, Seattle2 09, Salt Lake 09, LA4 09
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  • norm
    norm Posts: 31,146
    imalive wrote:
    norm wrote:
    that would take having to a whole other level

    :roll:
    hazing?


    yea typo....i'm a little pissed right now watching those twats you like up 5-0 ;) :evil: :twisted: :mrgreen:
  • Cosmo
    Cosmo Posts: 12,225
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  • Prince Of Dorkness
    Prince Of Dorkness Posts: 3,763
    Yes. Let's encourage students to have shoot-outs with each other. That's a good solution.






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  • blackredyellow
    blackredyellow Posts: 5,888
    Woohoo... lets combine lots of immature kids, plenty of alcohol, and guns... That will end well...

    Seriously though, I own guns anc think that this is a horrible idea... if you live off campus, then you can own a gun and have it in your apt (assuming that you meet state laws and all that)... I just don't understand the need to be able to take guns to class? Sure there is some crime, but it's not like college campuses are dangerous places to be.

    It might be stereotyping, but remembering my college days, I can just picture the type of people who would carry guns, and that makes it all the scarier.

    And I understand and agree with Soulsinging's post about different approaches in culturally different places, but as far as college campuses go, I'm thinking that they are MUCH safer without guns.
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  • OffHeGoes29
    OffHeGoes29 Posts: 1,240
    Yes
    BRING BACK THE WHALE
  • so-much-clearer
    so-much-clearer Posts: 303
    I think this is a horrible idea. It would just make the next school shooting even more disastrous, there'd be a firefight between the shooter and a bunch of students and profs, probably resulting in many more casualties.
    I'll wait for an angel, but won't hold my breath
  • youngster
    youngster Boston Posts: 6,576
    This is a horrible idea. And I'm a gun owner.
    He who forgets will be destined to remember.

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  • whitepants
    whitepants Posts: 729
    Guns on campus will not solve anything! I would not feel comfortable knowing someone in my class has a gun, just in case. What campuses and high schools need is an alarm system that notifies everyone ASAP that some shit is going down. We don't need the OK Corral happening in shools and university settings.

    Typical gun lobby morons... fight wackos with guns with, guns from non-wackos. Brilliant. :roll:
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  • g under p
    g under p Surfing The far side of THE Sombrero Galaxy Posts: 18,254
    Well I know Texas is a big gun toting state and if this law goes through the Professors better be packing too. Can you imagine a student objecting to a grade a professor hands out and he's packing, there may just be an intimidation factor to consider in that scenario to change that grade.

    I can foresee more shooting of professors than some gun packing nut shooting up a campus.

    I'm all for gun rights but this law is a recipe for disaster.

    Peace
    *We CAN bomb the World to pieces, but we CAN'T bomb it into PEACE*...Michael Franti

    *MUSIC IS the expression of EMOTION.....and that POLITICS IS merely the DECOY of PERCEPTION*
    .....song_Music & Politics....Michael Franti

    *The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite INSANE*....Nikola Tesla(a man who shaped our world of electricity with his futuristic inventions)


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