Guns on campus - a really bad idea

Allowing students (and all state citizens) to have the "right" to carry weapons is a really stupid idea. A recent AP article discusses a current Utah law that allows citizens to bear arms and allows students to legally carry concealed weapons on campus in the name of "being prepared".

How stupid can you get? What can the legislators in Utah be thinking when they pass a law providing the means to have guns readily available in any volatile situation that comes along?

Yes, having a concealed weapon might let some individuals feel safer, and, yes, there is a possibility that the death toll might have been lower in the recent Virginia Tech massacre if students or teachers had been carrying firearms. But allowing students and all other citizens to carry weapons, concealed or otherwise, anywhere in society provides the opportunity for shootings to break out anytime a hostile situation arises and the toll could be far greater as deaths add up over time.

There are no easy answers to address seemingly random shooting incidents in our society but providing the means to have guns on hand at all times would greatly increase the risk of having more shootings on a smaller scale when so many situations occur where tempers flare and individuals try to take things into their own hands.

News and Observer
April 28, 2007
Brock Vergakis, The Associated Press

In Utah alone, law allows guns on campus

SALT LAKE CITY - Brent Tenney says he feels pretty safe when he goes to class at the University of Utah, but he takes no chances. He brings a loaded 9 mm semiautomatic with him every day.

"It's not that I run around scared all day long, but if something happens to me, I do want to be prepared," said the 24-year-old, who has a concealed-weapons permit and takes the handgun everywhere but church.

After the massacre at Virginia Tech that left 33 dead, some have suggested the carnage might have been lower if a student or professor with a gun had stepped in.

As states and colleges across the country review their gun policies in light of the tragedy, many in Utah are proud to have the nation's only state law that expressly allows the carrying of concealed weapons at public colleges. Read more...