Idaho educators are up in arms about legislation that would allow [legal] guns on campus. Meanwhile, women continue to be raped, assaulted and murdered, both on and off campus. (Men too.) But mostly off-campus, such as the woman who was gang-raped near UC Santa Barbara. An assault that preceded another rape by a matter of a few hours. No to mention that “Sunday’s was the second reported gang rape of a UCSB student in the area in two months.” The latimes.com reports that “In the pre-dawn hours of Jan. 18, an 18-year-old student was raped by two men and a male juvenile next to the campus.” As a father to four girls, as an American, as a sympathetic human being, I say these women should have been armed. Why is that so hard to understand? The antis argue that . . .
“allowing” Americans to exercise their natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms is more dangerous than prohibiting them from doing so.
First, by what authority does anyone – especially the state – usurp a person’s right to armed self-defense? Whether or not it is more dangerous for a person to carry a gun – in terms of having their gun taken away and used against them, or enabling a suicidal impulse, or any other negative consequence real or imagined – it doesn’t matter. Gun rights are individual rights. It’s the individual’s right to choose whether they want to assume those risks or not. Full stop.
Second, if the antis are going to make the case that the dangers of “allowing” Americans to carry on campus outweigh the advantages, bring it! Let the gun grabbers present verifiable evidence of the negative consequences of campus carry (e.g. frat boys rum amok with guns or students intimidating professors or whatever). Then the pro side can go into detail about all the crimes committed on or near campus by predatory criminals. Crimes that should have been a defensive gun use.
And maybe we should ask rape victims and the families or those murdered on or near campus if they wish the victims had been armed.