“Carrying a gun comes with an implicit threat. Gun holders can, at any moment, kill the people around them, and college campuses cannot remain centers of free inquiry and exchange if students and faculty are faced daily with the threat of violent death. In our view, the only place for a gun on a college campus is in the holster of a trained police officer.” – The Duke Chronicle’s editorial board in No guns at Duke [at dukechronicle.com]
So . . . but for the want of a gun, Duke students would shoot each other? Do they plan to address this psychopathology beyond removal of guns?
Like I keep saying, if a person can’t be trusted with a gun, they can’t be trusted to be loose in society. If Duke students are just loose cannons waiting for a weapon to fall into their lap so they can wreak havoc, they need to close the school.
Honestly anti-gun people seem to have some really fubar’d views of humanity. I’m a misanthropist and even I don’t think all people are as bad as many anti-gunners seem to.
Anti-gunners seem to think that:
1) People are lazy. Get rid of guns and violence will decrease because we all know people are too lazy to fight unless it’s an easy win. (Some maybe, but I’ve always found the most dangerous things are motivation and apathy. Reason for violence, and lack of concern of the other persons well being).
2) People aren’t creative. I mean w/o a gun someone would never ever find a method to use alternative methods, even those more effective than a gun. (If that was remotely true, the crusades, bombings, mass stabbings, arson, & planes into buildings would have never happened).
3) People are savage beast who have to be physically restrained and de-clawed else mass murder will ensue. (Violence is in our very makeup, because well, violence helped our ancestors survive long enough to feed themselves, secure finite resources, & fend off predators. It’s a very useful biological function. But if humans were in mass unable to control their violent tendencies our species would have never made it this far as our ancestors would have hunted and killed each other to the point of not having anyone left with to procreate.)
Nah, they’re too busy raping each other to shoot each other. We can’t have the administrators allowing those being raped to have the ability to defend themselves or the school sports teams performance would suffer.
That rape case was a joke. The players were proven innocent, the DA was disgraced, and the accuser is now in jail for cutting someone’s throat…
There’s always that one guy.
Using the Duke author’s logic:
– We should not allow anyone to drive a car, because they could run over a whole crowd at any moment.
– We should remove the sex organs of every male on campus, because they could commit rape at any moment. The female professors should be especially fearful of any potential rapist (male) in the classroom.
– Cancel chemistry lab before someone intentionally hurts someone else with chemicals. (So many ways to do this.)
– Need I go on. I think I made my point.
Several years ago someone shut down a female interviewer on TV who was using the same argument. He said, “If I’m a potential mass murderer, then you must be a potential hooker.”
The interviewer, she said, “I’m deeply offended! Why would you say that?” He replied, “Well, you’ve got all the necessary equipment for the job.”
This quote is just another demonstrator of the IRRATIONAL fear (hoplophobia) of many gun grabbers.
Well, they do have a lot of grad students.
Dennis Prager…..
If you graduate with a 4 year degree that is not technical or business related than most likely you are dumber then when you started 4 years ago…….If you received a graduate/doctorate degree than not only are you dumber but now your also dangerous.
You are full of equine excrement if you believe that.
Prager’s statements matches my general observation that the stupidest people I meet are generally recent college graduates in non-technical degrees aged 22-30.
After they’ve lived in the real world for 5-10 years they finally start un-learning the garbage that was fed to them by their professors and begin to smarten up in their 30’s. If they are doctorates in sociology or similar then they may never wise up.
They’re working on the compliance meds right now… not quite ready yet, and they have to convince us that we NEED them. (Think the world of THX-1138.)
“Carrying a gun comes with an implicit threat.”
Finally peole are recognizing what governments do…
Outstanding point that we should rub in their face.
That’s pretty much what I was thinking. We walk around under the implicit threat of officialized violence every day.
Those “trained police officers” they seem to like so much are carrying guns…but aren’t a threat? What makes them so different than the average human? Does their training wipe away all traces of violence, making them pure and angelically peaceful beings?
I’d say something disparaging about Duke, but the university I work at has policies that basically amount to the same opinion. They’re all this dim. Educated idiots everywhere.
Men Demand Action for Automobile Control
Wait… students are already armed with… fists! It’s an implicit threat! They can pummel each other for no apparent reason! Restrain their fists with handcuffs on campus and the threat will be neutralized. No fists at Duke!
Using this same logic, everyone with a penis is a rapist waiting to strike and everyone with a vagina is a prostitute looking for a customer.
So, Congress.
Based on the sexual assault courses I have had to take just to go to my college, that mindset is already well established within the academic faculty.
On a serious note all college students carry heavy textbooks in their backpacks. Any student could use one of those textbooks to knock out or kill a person in a fraction of a second. One solid blow with a hardcover book to the head or almost anywhere in the neck/throat would be devastating. Shall we ban textbooks as well?
And what about all the large rocks and bricks on campuses? A student could use one of those to cave in a student’s skull causing instant death. Shall we ban large rocks and bricks on campuses?
Exactly, when I was in school. I carried some truly massive engineering textbooks. I’m 6’7″ and 290 pounds and had about a decade of martial arts training. If i just wanted to murder some, I could have very quickly.
I love how these eggheads all default to “everybody is insane and we can’t trust anyone” yet gun owners are the ones “living in fear.”
Classic case of psychological projection. Guns don’t belong on the Duke campus because, if someone carrying a gun gets into a debate, they might just take out the gun and shoot the place up. Really?
Fact check: of the 200,000 recent CCW permits in WI, how many law abiding citizens went postal and started shooting for no reason?
Obviously, none of those 200,000 gun owners have been subjected to “free inquiry”. Otherwise, all hell would’ve broken loose (/sarcasm)
How many of the 1.2 M Floridians with them have gone postal?
Those hard backed metal chairs are the proper weight for a club.
College campuses are already “faced daily with the threat of violent death” whether or not concealed carry is authorized. Just ask the students over at Virginia Tech. Typical upper class, elitist, ignorant prattle from future New York Times and HuffPo writers.
Oh yeah, if by “trained police officer” you mean the campus cops, then you are kidding yourself. Those guys generally have less training than regular police officers who don’t generally have enough training themselves.
Some places won’t let them even carry anything beyond a radio. Lot of good that will do beyond calling for someone to clean everyone’s bullet ridden corpses.
Well of course. A gun carries an implicit threat of violence, and therefore cops can’t carry guns either lest they go postal.
“Oh yeah, if by ‘trained police officer’ you mean the campus cops, then you are kidding yourself. Those guys generally have less training than regular police officers who don’t generally have enough training themselves.”
I think what is meant by this is that LEOs are trained to (generally) understand exactly how much trouble they will face if they use their pistol and get it wrong, so they avoid shooting unless they are absolutely certain they are (legally) right. That’s the theory, anyway. Generally this is learned by the trouble they cause for the public who try to use a pistol and maybe get it wrong. It also helps that police are legally covered every which way when they are caught up in a situation where they probably should have taken a shot and decided not to.
They’ll use the “brass pass” as much as they can, and will still probably wind up with a paid vacation and not much else…
The good cops? Well, they won’t be the one with the itchy booger hook needing to use the brass pass.
I like one of the comments (ala ProjectVeritas):
“A Challenge to you who agree with the author of this misguided opinion: wear a shirt or post a sign outside your house (after you have children who are now inside sleeping and expecting you to protect them) that tells everyone you and your homes are gun free zones. If you won’t do it, then you are a hypocrite and your true motives have nothing to do with making your life or mine, safer.
Father T – Trinity ’86 YITB”
Those citizens who were not armed were expected to be obsequiously polite and were required to wear in public the “Brassard of Peace” on their shoulder indicating they were not armed and could not be challenged to a duel or shot with impunity.
Robert Heinlein (paraphrase) “Beyond This Horizon”, (c) 1948
This so called Brassard of Peace only worked, by the way, because they were almost always surrounded by armed citizens who were ready and willing to step up to protect them. Without such escort they would obviously have been sitting ducks, as every gun control proponent who has not taken up the challenge to wear the “T-Shirt of Peace” is fully aware.
I’m 5’9″ and 160 lbs. Just standing next to someone who is, say, 6’4″ and 225 lbs implies the threat of violence. How can I possibly participate in free inquiry and the exchange of ideas in the presence of overwhelming physical dominance?
Good point. I am beginning to think I am living in some satirical, science fiction novella written 30-40 years ago. Equal means equal protection under the law. But we’ve become a society fearful of hurting anyone’s feelings because they are different, or taller, or shorter, or thinner, or fatter, or smarter, or…
Let’s do nothing to inflame anyone else. I remember reading many years ago – I cannot remember the source – that the failure of modern philosophy is that they no longer say great things, but say only very small things very precisely (so that no one gets offended)
Every child gets a trophy.
Another outstanding point that we need to rub in their faces.
What is with the People of the Numb’s belief that everyone around them is so unsettled that they are just a twitch away from murder?
Do they live amongst people constantly attempting to kill and fail because all they have on hand is a cell phone, and an informative pamphlet on anger management?
How naive.
“…and college campuses cannot remain centers of free inquiry and exchange if…”
“In our view, the only place for a gun on a college campus is…”
So there’s no room for discussion, free inquiry or exchange about this topic? Even if evidence solidly contradicts the position you’ve taken…..oh wait, I see. You only want free inquiry if you either don’t really care about the outcome of the discussion or if you know you can win the argument. When those pesky facts get in the way, “it’s our way or the highway”. And you claim to be free thinkers… tsk, tsk, tsk.
Indeed. There’s a lot of discussion, inquiry, and free exchange in the lobby of the shooting ranges I’ve attended, and those places are literally packed with guns and shooters. Therefore, shooters at gun ranges must have superior tolerance and impulse control when compared with Duke College students.
“There’s a lot of discussion, inquiry, and free exchange in the lobby of the shooting ranges I’ve attended…”
If such discussions by armed persons were inevitably decided by gunfire the 1911 guys would have won the caliber war a long time ago. /sarc
Some of the most interesting, passionate, and controversial debates I have ever had were with other military members while deployed in Iraq. We came from a diverse set of geographic locations, backgrounds, and ages… much like a modern university. Funny thing is we had some serious disagreements about politics and policy while each sat at the table strapped with M9s yet no one ever even pulled their gun let alone shot each other. I think it is not the presence of the gun that is the issue.
I like where you went with that.
What kind of healthy man would admit that he can’t kill anyone around him? That we don’t is what makes us civilized. That we can is what makes us necessary.
” . . . college campuses cannot remain centers of free inquiry and exchange . . . ”
Now that there’s just hilarious. What he meant to say was “cannot remain centers of liberal/Marxist inquiry and exchange”. College campuses haven’t been centers of “free inquiry and exchange” for decades.
You beat me to it. You’re only ever free to spout the party rhetoric.
They really should just stick to basketball.
Tom
What everyone is forgetting is that the bigger reason for CC on campus is not to deter mass shootings but to keep our daughters from being raped. Both on campus and when traveling to and from.
Or from getting robbed or mugged at knife or gun point!
What an insulting and debasing article.The academic is suggesting that us gun owners are homicidal maniacs waiting for a chance to kill someone in cold blood.How disgusting,the idea that we are just murderers prevented because the law denies us legal access to firearms on campus.
In that vein, I propose we petition Congress to outlaw snow. Since law keeps Duke Univerity safe, it also ought to keep it dry and sunny all year round.
I assure you there are many professors that don’t agree with that philosophy. I had one colleague at Auburn that told me he had colleagues he didn’t want carrying. I reminded him that those cats are EXACTLY one of the reasons I want to carry.
“Carrying a gun comes with an implicit threat. Police officers can, at any moment, kill the people around them, and college campuses cannot remain centers of free inquiry and exchange if students and faculty are faced daily with the threat of violent death. In our view, the only place for a gun on a college campus is in the holsters of students.”
Fixed
Excellent.
Kind of like the LEO that shot and killed 6 people at a Wisconsin pizza place before being shot by other LEO himself back in 2007.
Well . . . since CC is allowed on PUBLIC campuses but not on Duke’s precious private grounds, I hope the trustees on Duke’s campus got with their office of general counsel and reviewed their insurance coverages both for the school and personally. When a young woman is raped or a student is injured in a campus robbery, I suspect there will be some serious lawsuits focusing on the failure of the school to protect the students when they disarmed them. Just saying. this is gonna be fun to watch. Even trial whores, I mean lawyers, serve a useful purpose in society.
Dream on Dirk. Ain’t going to happen. The college owes no more duty to protect than any other business–which is to say essentially no duty at all. The theory that any business that takes away your right to carry is therefore responsible for providing for your safety has not been adopted as a legal doctrine, and the only ones making this argument are gunnies. The main flaw in this argument is its failure to recognize that your right to carry ends at my private property line. Now the wisdom or logic of such bans an be debated endlessly, but that is not a question involving legal rights or duties.
CC isn’t allowed on NC campuses. We can keep them locked in our cars beginning sometime this month, but actually carrying is still a no-no.
Also, Dook sucks.
+1 Dook does indeed suck.
I think they know of what they speak.
Pretty much every mass shooter the last couple of years have come from a liberal/progressive back ground.
This is you from an ideology that teaches you to be a victim, hating yourself for being powerless, helpless and defenseless; to despise yourself for being the supposed cause of the destruction of the planet; to be taught that you are a disease, a virus on the face of Gaia, the living planet.
Really, with a self hating death cult that is liberal/ progressivism; I’m surprised more of these people don’t go postal.
Maybe the school board of trustees are afraid that professors will become intimidated by the knowledge of knowing they have an armed student populous. Grading might become more fair and less liberal interjection to boot.
I don’t understand the elevation of law enforcement to super human status. The only diffrence between me and a cop is blue cloth and some metal for a badge.
Actually, people are elevating law enforcement officers to God status because they believe officers are omniscient (all knowing), omnipresent (everywhere at once), omnipotent (all powerful), and holy (without sin/character flaws).
Seriously. People that rely on police for personal security expect the police to know everything, be everywhere, able to handle everything, and never make selfish decisions or be corrupt. That is not even close to realistic. I am not saying this to bash police officers. I am saying this because it is the truth.
Police serve an important role in our society to capture criminals after the fact and to assist citizens when criminal gangs overwhelm them. Anything beyond that is unrealistic or tyranny.
I didn’t know everything before our “upgrade” slowed our mobile computers down. Since we’ve been getting driver / reg / warrant returns a few hours after running them, that information is useless. The last two days I barely knew squat.
“Carrying a gun comes with an implicit threat. Gun holders can, at any moment, kill
the peopleany criminals around them, and college campuses cannot remaincenters of free inquiry and exchangecommunist indoctrination centers if students and faculty are faced daily with thethreat of violent deathprospect that citizens don’t need the State. In our view, the only place for a gun on a college campus is in the holster of atrained police officergovernment storm trooper.” – The Duke Chronicle’s editorial boardThere, I fixed it for them.
+1
Very nice.
So I can assume Duke University (the same university and editorial board who pronounced tge lacrosse players guilty with no evidence, nice track record guys) has hired either Harry Potter or Hermoine Granger to place the magical gun free zone protective enchantment on the university. You gotta have the best because others hired less distinguished Hogwart’s graduates and their magic didn’t work.
I would like to point out that tarring everyone with the same brush (e.g. calling college campuses “communist indoctrination centers”) is just as obtuse as the comments made in the post. Hypocrisy won’t help anyone maintain their rights.
Kyle,
Please find 5 colleges or universities that embrace students, staff, and visitors who want to carry concealed handguns for personal protection on campus, in dorms, and in classrooms. Please find even one.
And I am not talking about the colleges and universities in states that “allow” concealed carry because the state legislature forced them. I am talking about colleges and universities that embrace and even encourage students, staff, and visitors to carry concealed. If you can point to even 1% of colleges and universities that embrace concealed carry, I will stop referring to those institutions as communist indoctrination centers.
The simple fact of the matter is that you will not be able to find 1% or even just 5 colleges or universities that embrace and encourage concealed carry … because a person who carries concealed is not totally dependent upon the elite/government and that undermines communism.
Try to name the colleges that permit rape, death and just plain old robbery. That a group of people, or an organization has great thoughts, or really holy ideals will not mean they will protect all their members.
The best course is for everyone to love each other, to the point of self sacrifice for the other’s survival.
But that is a moral issue, and not a legal one, you seem to want a legal one. Well, it is illegal for the government to infringe on the right of the people to keep and bear arms. Good people with guns are not a problem, never have been.
Colorado State University (Ft Collins) has allowed CC for nearly 20 years with no ill effects.
This is never mentioned by state gun-grabbers who prefer their own fantasies to reality.
I don’t argue that gun-free zones are a good idea, quite the opposite. I AM saying that the language you use to describe your opponent says more about you than them. Many people on this forum talk about the language of gun control advocates dehumanizing gun owners, turning them into crazed violent thugs when the reality is quite the opposite. You cannot complain about this if you turn around and do the exact same thing.
Side note: Am I the only one that doesn’t like all these super short barreled ARs that are in vogue.
Why would you neuter an already marginal (.223) rifle round by cutting off a big chunk of the barrel? The saving grace with going with a light weight high velocity round is the high velocity part…
I think it’s more “tact-cool” think than anything else.
I like at least a 16″ barrel myself for “rifle use”
But if you are using it for CQB, particularly home defense I can see how a short barrel with a suppressor contained mostly within the handguard making up an OAL of about 16″ could be an optimal weapon. You have maneuverability, good capacity, and near-range stopping power, down range performance isn’t a priority, and the mitigation of sound and flash protects your hearing and vision which you’ll be depending on in the moment.
Velocities aren’t as severely affected by barrel length as you might think. The shorter barrels are for maneuverability and storage convenience. Check out the link below and determine at what length the velocity becomes an issue. Also, remember that in CQB conditions, the range to target is rarely beyond 50 yards.
http://www.accuratereloading.com/223sb.html
Comparing a 16″ barrel to a 10″ barrel, that is ~ 350 fps and ~ 500 comparing it to a 22″ barrel. I would call that a big deal since it translates to energy of the bullet. Of course other things go into play such as barrel twist rate, bullet weight. In addition, some powders do better in shorter barrels than others. Of course the engagement range is intended to be close with an SBR.
The comments to the original article are some of the clearest, most rational, and, especially, the most LITERATE arguments in support of concealed carry I’ve ever read. They are well worth reading and remembering for future reference.
I was impressed as well with the comments on the original story.
Carrying a hand comes with an implied threat. They may be turned into a fist without hesitation, our pick up a blunt or sharp object that can be used as a weapon.
Or…Carrying a firearm constitutes an implied threat to those who seek to harm the armed citizen. Welcome to college! A list of the rights we allow you to keep while in attendance has been posted in the commons for your convenience.
Good grief. Even with the stupid gun bills that passed the Colorado legislature this year, they were practical enough not to press the issue of banning concealed carry on college campuses. The bill that would have banned it was withdrawn by the sponsor when the support didn’t materialize. It’s been allowed on some campuses here for years, and there haven’t been any incidents on campus.
I haven’t really been to a local gun shop in a while because I don’t have the energy for regular gun battles anymore. I mean, we all know the 1911 is great, but do people have to use it to solve every argument based on personal opinion? I’m not saying it’s always 1911 guys, sometimes the glock guy draws first and gets somewhere with his 30-round mag. Oh wait, that doesn’t happen.
If people are walking around with a strong desire to kill people around them they need some serious help and shouldn’t be interacting with others. Then again, with what higher education outlets do to students I can see how the administration has legitimate fears for their lives.
yea, because that’s exactly what I’m aiming to do… change my life forever over a stupid disagreement. and these people are educated? laughable.
Once again, the existence of armed police completely destroys this argument. It certainly is not acceptable in a free and open society for the government to be constantly making an implicit threat of violent death against any and all its citizens, and it has nothing to do with whether or not those cops are “trained.”
It is incredible how the editorial board has learned nothing from the recent mass murder by James Holmes at the Aurora theater.
The slaughter at Cinemark was totally out of the norm of a psycho student. Such maniacs consistently vent their rage by shooting up the place and people they associate with their frustration and rage – the campus – which is nearly universally an accommodating “gun free zone”. We see similar behavior in disgruntled employees choosing to kill at their places of employment.
The Board of Regents at the CUD campus had recently been ordered by the state Supreme Court to permit holders of CCWs to carry guns on campus. Holmes wisely avoided his “CCW allowed” campus and then passed by several theaters with the same show, but no rule against guns, choosing instead the “gun free” Cinemark as a substitute for his armed campus. That looks like “displaced aggression” to my non-professional judgment.
It is unfortunate that Holmes found a “gun free zone” to substitute for the armed CUD campus, but we can learn much from an armed campus remaining safe, while a “gun free” theater became a “gun free, murderer safe, killing zone”.
*** The above comment was submitted 3 times to the Duke Chronicle site. It has been “awaiting moderation” for several hours. Maybe I stepped on some toes. ***
If you believe people being armed with a gun contributes with any significance threat of violent death in a public setting, then you are extremely naive. That is not to say that weapons aren’t dangerous, rather you are not considering the size of the threat from the multitudes of other weapons, or maybe not recognizing what these other weaponizeable objects are all around you.
As tragically and disgustingly demonstrated frequently in other places in the world, in the hands of a mass murderer, the 32 oz water bottle (ubiquitous on college campuses) filled with gasoline in addition to a cigarette lighter is a faster, more lethal, more brutal, and harder-to-interdict mass murder weapon than any handgun, shotgun, or semiautomatic rifle.
An mass murderer in a confined gun-free zone kills how many people in tens of minutes? 4? 12? 25? A nut spraying gasoline out of a water bottle in a confined space over in china kills how many people in tens of seconds? 45. 50.
I want the ability to interdict that guy and save my own life in the few seconds it takes for him to set off his attack. Hence concealed carry.
“college campuses cannot remain centers of free inquiry and exchange if students and faculty are faced daily with the threat of violent death”
Since when are modern colleges centers of free inquiry and exchange? The free-ness only exists if you agree with those in charge.
Trained Police Officers have never killed the people around them…(COUGH) Chris Dorner!
When is this blood in the streets wild west bullshit claim gonna stop? Been hearing it for 25 years and with shall issue in 42 states, it has yet to happen outside isolated incidents.
They have been using the Wild West claim at least every since Florida rolled out the “Shall Issue” CCW in 1987 with the first one being issued to Marion Hammer.
I really don’t understand why universities bother with these polices. The fact is that the vast majority of their students are under 21 and not qualified to carry, and that may of the students over 21 are graduate students, not known for their wild antics, or students returning after military service (who presumably have some level of firearms training).
Oh the irony! Douche University owes its economic survival to tobacco money — Washington Duke owned the American Tobacco Company and made more cigarettes than anyone and therefore killed more people than anyone. All to the benefit of the university that bears his name.
And when some white athletes were wrongly accused of rape by a black hooker, the commies who make up the school’s pedagogical and administrative staff couldn’t wait to prove how politically correct they were by hanging the innocent boys out to dry.
Ya can’t make this stuff up, people.
They don’t want guns on campus why do they allow men? After all don’t men commit more violent crime than women?
“…if students and faculty are faced daily with the threat of violent death.” Hey we’re talking about Durham here. That’s reality in the hood that is the city around the university. If they dont wanna face the threat, they need to move the school.
As someone who lives in Utah and can carry on *any* campus, I don’t have this problem. Call/text/email your senators. Get the laws changed.
Want to face violent death every day? Cross the street. The Running of the Bulls has nothing on that. Yet they do it every day without thinking.
[LOUD Bronx Cheer]
Ya,tell that to Amanda Collins whose was raped at the University of Nevada Reno,40 ft from UNR police,The rapist wen on to rape Brianna Dennison and kill her and left her body in a ditch,where it laid for a month before it was discovered.Amanda Collins was a CCW holder but was not allowed to carry on campus.SO F U STUPID ACCADEMIC LIBERALS!
Please if you would, would you please make sure DUKE gets my message,Thank you so much!
If it aint open carry, how would Puke…er…Duke know? If you don’t see the weapon, then no perceived threat. Just don’t vote libtard (democrat) again.
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