There are lots of good reasons why young Americans shouldn’t be able to exercise their natural, civil and Constitutional right to keep and bear arms on campus. Wait. No. There are a few reasons and they all suck. But they do exist. They have to exist, otherwise people who want to ban guns from campus (except for local, state and national police; campus security and the National Guard) would appear as what they are: hopeless hoplohobes with a tenuous grasp of reality or, dare I say it, common sense. deseretnews.com has pubished an article that reveals the anti-gunners’ anti-campus carry logic, such as it isn’t. Starting with the first sentence . . .
Advocates for keeping firearms out of college assemblies say there’s something wrong with a system that bans people from bringing their own food or drinks into a university assembly, but not their guns.
What does a ban on food and drink at college assemblies – which prevents unhygienic conditions and extra work for unionized custodians – have to do with banning concealed carry – a neat, discreet and effective means of providing personal self-protection and deterring unimaginable slaughter? Nothing – if you think about it. If you don’t, prohibiting food and drink while “allowing” firearms sounds crazy! Bullets, not bananas? GLOCKs not Gatorade? The horror! The horror!
“It’s our concern as mothers that children are being prevented from being able to participate in assembles and events where they can have intellectual freedom,” said Chelsi Archibald [above right], with the group MomsRising.org.
There’s a joke in there about Dads Rising but I’m not going to make it. And neither are you. Meanwhile, Chelsi’s [non] reasoning posits that the presence of guns – hidden guns – intimidates students, preventing them from speaking freely. Much in the way that the presence of sharp scissors in a kindergarten classrooms scare children out of their ability to finger paint.
Even if Utah banned guns on campus someone could carry a hidden firearm into an assembly. (Someone like FSU shooter Myron May.) Ms. Archibald is arguing that Utah should void gun rights so that children (children!) can feel safe – even though they’re wouldn’t be, really. In fact, the children (children!) would be less safe without armed citizens to protect them.
Archibald said students should not be deprived of learning because of the fear of being shot.
“Our Second Amendment rights do not trump our First Amendment rights for free speech,” she said.
To quote the ad, that’s not how it works. That’s not how any of this works. The rights protected by the United States Constitution are not prioritized. They are co-equal. You can carry a gun AND speak freely. You can speak freely AND sue the police for indiscriminate search and seizure. If a student feels “deprived” of learning because of his or her fear of firearms or snakes or crowds of people or clowns (a.k.a., sociology professors) I recommend hypnotherapy. Depriving Americans of their gun rights won’t solve anything.
“I don’t have an opinion on that issue altogether, with people being able to carry guns. I come from a gun-friendly family. My specific issue is with gatherings and assemblies and the ability to exchange intellectual ideas between students,” she said. “When that is hampered, then we are on dangerous ground. Because then we are allowing people who are concealed carrying, which is completely their right, to infringe on people’s free speech. That’s a very dangerous place to be.”
Yup, it’s Groundhog Day. Chelsi makes the same argument again, with an extra helping of disingenuousness. “I don’t have an opinion on [gun control] altogether.” Right. “I come from a gun-friendly family.” So what went wrong? “That’s a very dangerous place to be.” Like . . . the classrooms at Virginia Tech?
Joining Archibald on Friday to deliver the petition was Bishop Scott Hayashi of the Episcopal Diocese of Utah.
He believes that while the majority of concealed permit holders are well-intentioned and would not cause a problem during an assembly, if an incident were to arise, they would not be able to respond the same way a police officer or a person with military training would. They might be more reckless in using their firearm, he said.
Because of that, Bishop Hayashi believes the same people who believe they are giving others a sense of security by carrying a weapon are actually doing just the opposite.
I doubt Bishop Hyashi ever spent a moment contemplating the difference in life-saving effectiveness between armed citizens’ defensive gun uses and police officer involved shootings. Not only do armed Americans take out more bad guys than cops, they almost never shoot the wrong person. “Law-abiding American citizens using guns in self-defense during 2003 shot and killed two and one-half times as many criminals as police did,” forbes.com reports, “with fewer than one-fifth as many incidents as police where an innocent person mistakenly identified as a criminal (2% versus 11%).”
Groups petition for gun bans from school assemblies failed to forward my favorite anti-campus carry argument: young adults with gun permits in college get drunk and shoot people. In this case, as in so many others, it’s all about a “sense of security,” rather than facts. Truth be told, the antis are not interested in facts, logic or reason. They operate from a position of irrational fear, willful ignorance and intellectual arrogance. And our children pay the price.
“Advocates for keeping firearms out of college assemblies say there’s something wrong with a system that bans people from bringing their own food or drinks into a university assembly, but not their guns.”
So, let ’em have snacks, problem solved.
So let them eat cake..?
Oh, wait…
According to Mel Brooks –
King Louis – “They are my people! I am their sovereign! I LOVE Them… Pull!”
Exactly! It’s like when Peirs Morgan took out 6 boxes of behind the counter Sudafed during his debate with Ben Shapiro in order to make some lame argument about ammunition purchasing limits. I would have loved to see Shapiro point out that making Sudafed less accessible did not achieve the stated goal of reducing the manufacture and sale of meth, and that maybe we should go back to OTC for that kind of Sudafed. People with that type of mindset just see control as a good thing and can’t see the waste of these control schemes.
You bring your 40, I’ll bring mine? But what if it’s a dry campus?
Said another way: perhaps if I had my .40SW then, you wouldn’t be tipping your 40oz to my memory now.
Well, if they put up lots of metal “gun free zone” signs, mounted with velcro, at least the students could hit the illegally carrying thugs with the signs, that should make them feel safe, yeah?
If someone is truly carrying concealed, why would anyone feel threatened? OH! It’s the possibility that someone might be legally carrying that makes everyone feel unsafe, I get it! Problem solved, everybody open carry and we’ll sing kumbaya…… Sheesh…..
they would not be able to respond the same way a police officer or a person with military training would. They might be more reckless in using their firearm, he said.
——————–
As you noted, their statement is one founded in profound ignorance.
People on the left have this very odd perception of authority. It’s both to be condemned, and at the same time, authority automatically conveys extreme competence in their minds.
To the left, every member of law enforcement can hit a 1/4 target at 100 yards from a draw 100% of the time. That law enforcement must be training all day long of firearm proficiency.
When the actual fact that many officers are so poorly trained, that they cannot keep their damn finger off the trigger when they don’t have a target, is presented, their minds simply cannot accept this. Authority MUST BE COMPETENT.
Literally, to many of them, when law enforcement hits bystanders, it’s because they deliberately missed in order to terrify the populace into compliance, or law enforcement is in some kind of berserker trance unable to stop firing at anything that moves.
That law enforcement would have trouble hitting water while standing on the deck of a ship, is beyond their ability to mentally grasp.
“they would not be able to respond the same way a police officer or a person with military training would. They might be more reckless in using their firearm, he said.”
Yeah, like the rookie cop in NYC who murdered an unarmed guy who was just minding his own business because he got nervous in a dark stairwell, and gets off without trouble by calling it an accidental discharge? Why is nobody protesting that? Wait, Akai Gurley was black? Look out here comes Al Sharpton.
The professional outrage machine is busy in MO at the moment.
It is a childish mindset. A local radio show host was talking about being a judge in some sort of essay competition recently. He then started to reminisce about being a kid in such a situation and bribing that the judges must have gone to some judging school and have special competence because they were in as position of authority. He realized for the first time that the judges in such a competition were just normal folks with no training when he find himself in that position
Right. And some (not all) cops fall right in line with that, particularly in small towns. Here’s your badge and gun, you start Monday, and that’s all the training you get, and for many it’s all the training you need to hold that job for the next 40 years. Assuming anyone in uniform is some manner of superhuman expert on firearms is just ignorant. During my 20 years in the Air Force, I qualified alongside Air Police three different times. Twice with .38 revolvers and once with M-16s. And never did even one of them approach my scores, though they were 20 years younger and full time “police”. Each time I had not fired a gun in a year, while (I assume) they trained on a regular basis. Normally, about 20% of each group failed completely and had to return and try again later (that was told to me by one of the instructors). While in my first time qualifying with the M-16, in 1970, I qualified expert marksman while only shooting at the head of the silhouette. Because I’d been shooting for a lot of years, not because someone pinned a badge on me.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: The most egregious violators of gun safety rules I have ever seen were police officers, who should have known better. Multiple times, I’ve had to duck for cover when a cop has muzzled me with a firearm, his finger on the trigger, while he talked with his hands to his buddy or a gun shop salesman. So don’t give me this crap about cops or military automatically being better with a gun than a private individual.
Gwen, I presume the “this crap” applies to the Mormon Bishop Havarti’s rationale?
Sounds like you have spent a lot of time at he range. Instructor?
Interesting factoid from Forbes, RF, thanks.
“Bishop Scott Hayashi of the Episcopal Diocese of Utah”
Since when were Episcopalians Mormons?
You seen one believer in arcane magic, you seen ’em all. What’s in a name?
Bishop Ham Sandwich is Episcopal, not Mormon. Not that there aren’t any Mormons with his misguided opinions (I know a few)…but generally speaking, the Mormon church explicitly prohibits its leaders from using their pulpits as political grandstands.
“intellectual freedom”? I’m a fan of history, and I can tell you much more intellectual freedom has been prevented in the absence of private arms than in their presence.
Please supply one instance of a concealed carrier intimidating or suppressing speech. Then we’ll talk.
These people consider the mere possibility that someone may be legally carrying a firearm to be a threat to them and an attempt to stifle their free speech.
Of course, these same liberals consider “free speech” to mean “any speech or expression that agrees with their opinion”. Any dissenting opinions are considered “hate speech” and must be suppressed and/or penalized.
I just want to know what in the hell they’re discussing in class that they fear may drive an otherwise normal college student into a homicidal rage.
Gun control.
When you look at it critically, what they are claiming is the all powerful position of being able to silence anyone and forbid anything that “offends” someone. Of course, they assume that they will be the ones to decide what is offensive and what is not.
It is a completely indefensible position. It magically transfers all moral authority to them and away from their opponents.
In essence, the argument simply says: I am right, you are wrong, your arguments do not matter.
if an incident were to arise, they would not be able to respond the same way a police officer or a person with military training would
Darren Wilson and George Zimmerman — one a cop and one not — prove otherwise.
Would she rather a CCW carrier be dealing with an active-shooter threat right now or wait ten minutes for an officer to arrive?
Or does she advocate stationing an officer in every classroom? (Which I’m sure wouldn’t intimidate the free exchange of ideas…)
Wait. They are trying to ban food and guns? Which university is this. Don’t want to go there. They are trying to force students to eat their high-priced nutrient-free profit-making snacks.
Honestly, I don’t think they should be banning people from bringing their own food, and yet they use this as a normalizing reference and comparison for the banning of firearms. So here is my response:
There, fixed that. Statists love regulation. Lets ban and regulate everything. Less freedom – more conformance. We don’t need freedom or even differences. Lets make everyone the same, uniform, homogeneous group of conforming sheeple.
I have a friend who runs beer concessions for the Seahawks and Mariners games in Seattle.
According to him the captive audience beer sales bring in massive piles of cash every week.
Movie theaters make almost nothing on ticket sales for the first week after release, so they need the captive audience pricing to keep their doors open and the electricity flowing.
I’d say the free exchange of ideas is restricted more by liberals shutting down any opposition to their views rather than unknown unseen firearms.
Rambling mess.
So, the antis get to make a list of places where they are afraid of guns, and then demand that they be banned in those places. And it so happens that they are generally afraid of guns in the cities.
This is yet another example of why government needs to get out of businesses it has no right to be in (education in this case).
If the university was truly a private institution, without a single penny of government funding, it could use its position as the property owner to restrict whatever it chooses: guns, snack foods, children, tall people, etc. And then we as consumers could decide to support or boycott it due to our agreement or disagreement with its policies.
But because it’s a government institution, it has no right to discriminate against anyone, for any reason.
Another article from the deseret against campus carry? I wonder if we’re in for another fisking from larry correia
“My specific issue is with gatherings and assemblies and the ability to exchange intellectual ideas between students,”
The worst statement of the bunch. The only way to have a completely safe assembly is to have SOMEONE armed, preferably 4, or 20, or all of them. If the assembly area is not pre-sweeped for weapons with controlled, searched, ingress and egress, then it is not an area well enough controlled to say that no weapons would be there unlawfully.
“Because then we are allowing people who are concealed carrying, which is completely their right, to infringe on people’s free speech.” — Chelsi Archibald?
Let me get this straight. Ms. Gun Grabber says that it is NOT okay for firearms to infringe on free speech … but it is okay for free speech to infringe on firearms. Is it just me, or is there absolutely no reasoning whatsoever in such an assertion?
That’s exactly what she is saying.
Both of the dead tree papers in Salt Lake City are slipping down the slope faster than you can luge it, but after trailing the Trib for some time, it’s nice to see Desperet News make a flailing scurry to meet them at the bottom.
I hate the Tribune just as much, though. Probably doesn’t help that their owned by the same people, they just try and make it sound like one is “Mormon” and one is “anti-Mormon”.
Luckily, Utah is a free state. Gun control is a boogeyman we hear about from Colorado tourists. I just wish that the people here could realize that individual freedom is good all the way around- whether it’s booze, boobs or buttse– I mean gay marriage.
Yup, we’re not going to let any of this nonsense happen. We like our rights. And totally agree about the DesNews and the Trib. Same BS, different clothes.
“… while the majority of concealed permit holders are well-intentioned and would not cause a problem during an assembly, if an incident were to arise, they would not be able to respond the same way a police officer or a person with military training would. They might be more reckless in using their firearm, he said.” — Ms. Gun Grabber
I can’t wait for the day when all gun grabbers learn that many (and possibly most) police officers and current/ex military personnel have minimal training, practice, skill, and accuracy shooting a handgun.
What is really frightening? Police officers HAVE to carry a sidearm and many lack both interest and proficiency with it. Armed citizens (whether carrying openly or concealed) on the other hand WANT to carry a sidearm and many have very high interest and proficiency with it. Who do you think is going to be more accurate by and large?
Here’s what none of these people seem to understand: The powers that be can set up temporary secure areas where CFPers are not allowed to carry. They have that power.
They declined to do that for Anita Sarkeesian’s speaking engagement at USU after the FBI investigated the threats made against her and concluded the threats were not legitimate.
In other words, they didn’t want to waste money and manpower on threats that had been proven false.
So, as usual, the antis are lathered up over an absolute non-issue.
Such false assumptions, First, as a general proposition, one has to be 21 to get a CCW and to own handguns. Which means that the vast majority of college students will not qualify to carry. Second, those college students who are 21 and over are often former military personnel, who therefore qualify as “specially trained.” Third, there is no prohibition against carrying pocket knives–as I did when I was in college and law school. In neither my experience nor in any news report that I can recall have I ever heard of a debate in a classroom erupting in fisticuffs, brawls, knife fights, thrown bottles, or “gun violence.” Why is there the supposition that violence will suddenly be prevalent if 21 year old and older students are permitted to carry? Could it be that these pundits are so afraid of guns that they are prejudiced against people who own guns?
Ummm. Roger Wilco? Was your first clue the fact that every time they mention gun owners, or simply people that are pro gun ownership we are called “Gun freaks” ?? Inflammatory much.
These emotionally motivated, self appointed but well meaning “officious intermeddlers” have been fully conditioned by the anti-gun rhetoric and emotional sound bites that depict ‘guns’ as inherently deadly on sight and the gun owners as prone to uncontrollable impulsive acts of carnage.
They have been willingly, emotionally brainwashed by years of exposure to the anti-gun message which has of late been organized into a concerted mass media and educational campaign. ‘Mavens’ like Archibald have simply become ‘enabled’ to ‘follow their hearts’ and emboldened by the coordinated anti-gun crusade to speak out on their own behalf for what they ‘feel’ as a result of all the anti’s rhetoric regardless of the truth of the matter.
All that, plus internet access and no doubt IT and WEB support from sympathetic anti-gun sources whenever requested.
The irony is that these idiots believe there are no guns present just because they cannot see them, or there is a sign/law/policy prohibiting them. The bigger irony is having that conversation, in a “gun-free” area, with an anti, while actually carrying…
I love how anti-gun people keep claiming that a student being allowed to carry in the classroom will suddenly turn discussions into a crime scene. When was the last time anyone threw a pen, let alone a punch, at someone during a college classroom debate?
Back in college, I was 5 feet 6 inches tall and weighed about 120 pounds. (I weigh significantly more now but none of it is muscle.) By Kelsi’s standard, I should have been terrified to speak up if any of my fellow students were 6 foot, 250 pound, football players. Because of the disparity in size and strength, women in the class should have been afraid of all the guys but me.
I would point out that someone holding a sharp pencil is armed. Deliberately poking someone in the eye with it would cause an injury serious enough to qualify for defense using deadly force. Of course, in the absence of other indicators, it is unreasonable to fear attack by people carrying pencils. The same is true of CCW permit holders.
So what she is saying is if she’s having a heart attack I shouldn’t try CPR on her because I might do more harm than good because I am not a Medical professional. In her case I’m good with that.
That’s an excellent point. The #1 factor in survival from sudden cardiac arrest is bystander CPR. Because when seconds count, the paramedics are only minutes away. That’s why many, many 911 call centers instruct callers in hands-only CPR over the phone.
We’re talking about time-sensitive, life-or-death situations in which bystander action doesn’t just save lives; it’s the single-biggest factor in doing so.
Why is that so hard for these modern-day prohibitionists to grasp?
So, let me get this straight. Since I am a retired military veteran, I should have the same national carry rights as any law enforcement officer? After all we are the only ones who have the appropriate training, even though the majority of military people never touch a firearm after basic training and most police have less training than non-leo concealed carriers. Perhaps the Federal Government should give us special credentials too, sort of a “Veterans Badge” indicating our status as special people. I have made it a point of personal responsibility to get additional training and regular practice, so I should certainly qualify for carry anywhere any retired LEO can.
“Truth be told, the antis are not interested in facts, logic or reason. They operate from a position of irrational fear, willful ignorance and intellectual arrogance. And our children pay the price.”
The antis leading the charge – the politicians, billionaires, and anti-gun extremists – operate from a position of intentional deception, fear mongering and emotional misrepresentation.
We and our progeny who lack the reality check of real world experience will all pay the price of the antis anti-gun conditioning and brainwashing in the media and educational institutions which by and large, they own and control due to the utopian progressives who populate and run them.
“Our Second Amendment rights do not trump our First Amendment rights for free speech,” she said. Uhhmmmm….it really goes something like this. “Our Second Amendment rights ensure our First Amendment rights for free speech,”
So, well meaning amateurs (on site gun owners) should not be able to act (carry and employ their firearm) but should have to wait for the professionals (police)? By that logic, CPR and Heimlich maneuver training for the public should be banned. An amateur could cause unnecessary bruising, broken ribs, disturb heart rhythm and who knows what other harm while trying to do good. Better that a choking, drowning or heart attack victim wait umpteen minutes to avoid those possible bad outcomes. I know that I would feel better hearing “We got here as fast as we could” from an EMT as I waited with my deceased loved one for the coroner. Better that than ugly bruising on my lucky (lucky that a trained amateur was present) survivor.
I’ll tell you this much: If I were a college student today, I would be carrying on campus and I wouldn’t give two seconds thought to anyone’s objections about it.
It is really easy. Install metal detecters, man them with qualified state employees and guarentee the safety of all individuals with a 20 million dollar bond each, and have armed guards there protecting them, maybe 1 guard for every 15? 20 people?
What? That would cost too much? So just scrap the idea and allow the people to carry – that simple.
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