Campus carry is getting another look in the Sunshine State. On Monday, a Florida Senate bill legalizing licensed campus carry passed out of committee (3 -2 party lines) A House bill also escaped committee unscathed. Contemplating campus carry’s resurrection, the left-leaning Florida SunSentinel felt obliged to have another bash at the attempt to “allow” legal gun owners the ability to exercise their gun rights at Florida’s public institutions of higher learning. The result is, predictably enough, completely inane . . .
It’s a leap to say the recent gun-related killing of two college students in their Daytona Beach apartment offers proof guns have no place on a college campus.
But it’s not a big leap.
Hang on. While Victims Diona McDonald and Timesha Carswell were music majors at Bethune-Cookman University, the murders happened off-campus. Someone should have told the anti-gunner who penned this anti-pistol polemic “look before you leap.” Unless of course, he didn’t want to see the chasm in front of him.
Two Bethune-Cookman University students were recently shot to death by a roommate over a rent dispute. Funeral services are expected to be held today on the university’s campus. You have to wonder whether this would be happening if a gun was not in that apartment.
tsp.com reports that killer York Bodden [above] “argued with them, then left the apartment. According to police, Bodden later returned with a gun and shot the women at point-blank range.” Though we don’t know for sure, the report indicates that the gun wasn’t “in that apartment” (until it was).
Not a huge point, perhaps. But it’s entirely representative of the SunSentinel’s disregard for the truth. They want readers to believe that the presence of a gun escalates confrontations. The homicide is painted as a “simple” rent dispute gone bad. What’s the bet there was a lot more to it than that? Skipping ahead . . .
The Second Amendment is a powerful one. And it’s always a hard battle to call for limiting gun owner rights. But this is 2015, when news of mass shootings is almost common-place.
Almost common-place? Weasel words, indicating the writer’s lack of confidence in their justification for infringing on Floridians’ natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms. The passage is also a truncated version of the antis’ argument that the Second Amendment is out-dated. And therefore moot. It isn’t and it isn’t.
College students bicker all the time. They get into fights with roommates over who didn’t flush the toilet last. They tussle over parking spaces. And when you add drunken weekend nights, there is no limit on the causes of instant brawls.
College students are selfish brats. Idiots. Louts. Drunks. Brawlers. And that’s just their good points! Even if true, how does the behavior of irresponsible people abrogate the rights of individuals who’ve done nothing wrong? If a college student drives drunk and kills someone – which happens on a regular basis – should all college students be banned from driving? By the same token, did Virginia Tech’s ban on campus carry stop Cho Seung-Hui from slaughtering innocents?
College is a time for students to learn and spread their wings. College is supposed to be enlightening and fun. And above all, college should be safe.
College shouldn’t be a time to worry about bullets flying.
Every time is a time to worry about bullets flying. [Note: not paranoia or anxiety, awareness.] To believe you are safe simply because of a regulation prohibiting firearms in a given space is a dangerous delusion. Whether you live on- or off-campus. [h/t PS]