Let us engage in a small exercise in logic. If the Obama Administration is to be believed (I know, I know, but just play along, please), everyone should go to college and the taxpayers should foot the bill. And why should everyone go to college? Because at least 20% (1 in 5) of all women will be raped there! And what is the government’s solution? Force colleges to conduct rape kangaroo courts that deny the male “rapists” due process rights without involving the police. Of course, this huge number of female rape victims must absolutely be denied firearms, because feminism, equality, diversity, tolerance, a pristine educational atmosphere, etc. . . .
Lawmakers in 13 states are considering ‘campus-carry’ bills. Supporters believe armed students could stop violent crimes like sexual assaults, but the controversy is dividing students.
At Florida State University, opponents believe allowing students to be armed is a dangerous idea, while proponents say crime victims have a right to fend off their attackers, reports CBS News correspondent Michelle Miller.
‘If I was single and dating in college and my boyfriend tried something that I said no to, and started sexually assaulting me, I would use my firearm to defend myself,’ Students for Concealed Carry co-president Rebeka Hargrove said.
The graduate student has a concealed weapons permit, but state law prohibits her from entering the Florida State University campus with her firearm.
She said she feels much safer with a gun in her purse.
‘I know that if anything were to happen, I would be able to defend myself,’ Hargrove said.
Among the traditional arguments against concealed carry on college campuses is the fact that students are young, immature, and often drink to excess. However, the minimum age for a concealed carry license in virtually every state is 21. Most traditional college students reaching that age are juniors or seniors, and more and more students are non-traditional, older, experienced, more mature.
Hargrove thinks guns will help deter would-be rapists, but also points to mass shootings like an incident in November, when a gunman opened fire in a campus library, injuring three people.
‘There were students there that could have stopped the shooter before he hurt and seriously injured more students,’ she said.
Colleges are almost universally victim disarmament zones where victims must rely on the police to save them if an attack occurs. Of course, the mere, well-publicized fact that no one is armed on campus throws any sort of deterrent effect out the window. That there are virtually no cases of the police stopping a school shooter in recent history seems not to bother anti-liberty activists and some police administrators.
Florida State University Police Chief David Perry disagreed.
‘That would have exacerbated and made our situation even worse,’ he said. ‘To have two or three or more people with weapons yelling commands, people firing rounds that can’t be accounted for, that’s just not a good mix.
What Perry neglects to mention is that police officers are trained to understand that they can easily roll into ambiguous situations. Any officer that would just blindly start shooting anyone holding a gun shouldn’t be on the street in the first place. And as I’ve recently written, police shooting in crisis situations is nothing about which to brag, nor is their “accountability” for rounds fired. In fact, when an attack occurs, it is the people actually present who are most likely to know exactly what is happening and who the bad guy is.
Even in victim disarmament zones, the police can’t just shoot anyone holding a weapon, which is what Perry implies. In the world outside such zones, where anyone could be legitimately armed, the police must be even more careful. If his officers are truly so ill-trained, they’re more dangerous to the public than anyone lawfully carrying a concealed weapon.
Perry joined top officials from the rest of Florida’s public universities opposing the bill, saying guns would actually make campuses less safe.
‘There’s also a culture of drugs, there’s also a culture of underage drinking, there’s also a culture of sometimes poor decision making,’ he said.
The ultimate flaw in this sort of reasoning is that criminals don’t obey the law. Those that want guns will get guns. Only the law-abiding, those victimized by criminals, will obey gun laws that disarm them. Consider this “logic” from a graduate student:
Yale Law student Alexandra Brodsky helped start ‘Know Your IX,’ a nationwide advocacy group that helps survivors of sexual violence. She believes campus-carry laws won’t work.
‘We’re talking about why shouldn’t a woman be able to carry a gun to protect herself. But if you’re going to give her a gun, you’re also going to have to give rapists a gun, and I think we can all realize that’s a really bad idea,’ Brodsky said.
Well of course. No rapist–someone contemplating committing a violent felony–would ever consider arming themselves unless they knew their victim was also armed. You’re so much better off just giving violent criminals whatever they want, or they might really get mad. Why, they might even commit microaggressions, or even applause!
The Justice Department says 1 in 10 sex assaults involves a weapon.
‘There’s a lot of men who are bigger and stronger than me,’ Hargrove said. ‘I don’t want to have to think back and say, ‘Oh, I could have stopped that if I had an equalizing weapon.
Allowing women, who tend to be smaller and weaker than men, and who tend to be most of the victims of actual rape, to carry concealed handguns, almost makes sense when one thinks about it, but then under the Brodsky Rule, rapists would have to be provided guns too.
This is the kind of thing people pay tens of thousands of dollars a year to learn in our institutions of higher learning.
Mike’s Home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.