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Aunt B. offered a post a few days ago that began (one of many elsewhere, I’m sure) an interesting debate into gun laws and campus policy regarding guns on college campus in the wake of the tragedy at Northern Illinois University. Madrocketscientist, one of the more reasonable “pro-carry” commenters, was inspired to write a post at The Line is Here in which he says:
Now, this post is not about Campus Carry, but rather, it is about this attitude amongst many that “things should be left to the professionals”, which was the thrust of the second campus carry counter argument. Got a crime problem, call the Professional Police. House on fire, call the Professional Fire Fighters. Medical Emergency, call the professional EMS. House floating away and you have no supplies to live off of, you must have forgotten to call the professional disaster people, FEMA. But whatever you do, DON’T BOTHER TO DO ANYTHING TO HELP YOURSELF. Just step away, call the professionals, and hope for the best.
Now, this may be just a little bit of “those lazy liberals won’t do anything to help themselves” nonsense conservatives just like to spout to each other so they can sit around patting themselves on the back. That’s sorta how it reads but, given his reasonableness over at Aunt B.’s, I’ll assume that wasn’t the actual intention of his post. If he really believes that “DON’T BOTHER TO DO ANYTHING TO HELP YOURSELF” is the thrust of the argument against campus carry policy, then I think he’s really missed the point.
If someone were to burst into my office right now with a weapon and the clear intent to use it, I wouldn’t “step away, call the professionals, and hope for the best.” I would call the professionals if I could manage so that they could be on their way, but with my martial arts background, I’d also be doing what I know it takes to disarm and disable the intruder. Could I get shot? Sure I could, but then unless there’s been some new technological advancement I’m unaware of, carrying a gun doesn’t make you bulletproof either. The point is, it’s a false dichotomy to suggest that your only choices are to carry a gun or do nothing at all.
The trap Madrocketscientist has fallen into is becoming so fixated on his own position that he’s blinded himself to other options (Sound familiar? It should, it’s the same issue that has led to the “dissent is treason” argument that the Republican Party has relied on so heavily for the last seven years.). My option has the benefit of never misfiring, and never getting left at home (not to mention that when the professionals do arrive, it’ll be much easier for them to determine who is the “good guy” and who is the “bad guy”). Of course it also has the potential disadvantage of requiring me to get a little closer to the shooter. Another option that might be even better if the situation allowed for it, would be to get everybody barricaded in the conference room where we could easily get out of the trajectory of any bullets fired through the door and therefore, safely wait for the police to arrive. All options have risks and benefits, and which one is right for the moment won’t always be the same. But if we allow ourselves to become so sure that the “right” option looks one specific way, then when another, better option for dealing with a problem presents itself in the moment, we won’t recognize it and will miss out. And just for the record, that applies to alot more in life than this issue.
I agree with Madrocketscientist’s assertion that it’s wise to train to be able to help ourselves, but since we can’t train for every situation we might find ourselves in, it might be even wiser to train ourselves to recognize multiple solutions in the moment. Without that ability, we’ll be helpless 99% of the time.
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February 22nd, 2008 at 1:25 pmKipEsquire says:
Meanwhile, the alternative of letting private universities decide for themselves whether to allow weapons on their land, and letting the markets for “gun-free” versus “gun-toting” campuses sort themselves out, is roundly rejected by both sides. Go figure.
See also, “smoking bans in bars and restaurants.”
(Public colleges are another topic altogether.)
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February 22nd, 2008 at 1:33 pmdolphin says:
letting the markets for “gun-free” versus “gun-toting” campuses sort themselves out, is roundly rejected by both sides.
Actually, nope. If you read the discussion over at Aunt B.’s you’ll see that that is precisely the argument I make.
[edited to add: I didn't mention it in this post, because this post really doesn't discuss the issue of whether guns should or should not be allowed on college campuses.]
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February 22nd, 2008 at 1:47 pmVolunteer Voters » The Karate Kid Alternative To Gun Control says:
[...] Dolphin’s Dock waxes on about gun control: If someone were to bust into my office right now with a weapon and the clear intent to use it, I wouldn’t “step away, call the professionals, and hope for the best.” I would call the professionals if I could manage so that they could be on their way, but with my martial arts background, I’d also be doing what I know it takes to disarm and disable the intruder. Could I get shot? Sure I could, but then unless there’s been some new technological advancement I’m unaware of, carrying a gun doesn’t make you bulletproof either. The point is, it’s a false dichotomy to suggest that your only choices are to carry a gun or do nothing at all. Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. [...]
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February 23rd, 2008 at 7:34 pmMadRocketScientist says:
First, like many people in this country, I know Martial Arts. I’ve had years of training in Tae Kwon Do and I consider myself pretty good at it. I’ve also spent time learning Fencing (Saber) and Kendo, although I would hardly call myself anything but a spirited amateur in either. I’ve had combat firearms training and unarmed training from the Marines (benefit of being a USMC taxi driver, they want you to know how to fight if you are stuck on a beach with them). So on the whole, I’m mildly badass.
Except for one thing.
When I was 20 (I’m in my mid 30s now), a car crossed the center line of the highway I was riding my motorcycle on and hit me. End result, well, let’s just say I was pretty broken up. I mean, even in full armor, getting smacked at 100+ mph is gonna leave a mark or two. I recovered pretty well, and I even still practice TKD, but I have limitations. I have one arm and one leg that don’t really work all that well, and if it is a bad day, well then they hardly work at all, which means I don’t really have the option of engaging in unarmed combat. Now I’m not looking for sympathy, if I do, I know where it is in the dictionary, but I want Dolphin to remember, despite my training, and my determination, if I engage in unarmed combat, the only way I’d hope to win is if my opponent is in their 80’s and in poor health. Not everyone is as awesome as you, and should not have to be in order to provide for their own defense.
And besides, one of the things my three different Sensei’s all agreed on, is that when facing a man with a gun, it is best to have a gun of your own. Failing that, the ideal thing is to rush them while weaving and hope they either are bad shots or unnerved enough to hesitate until you can close the range and engage to disarm (and some of the disarm techniques I learned against an opponent with a gun had little to do with an actual disarm and more to do with strikes to kill or incapacitate in one hit).
Now, when I was in college, I took a job on campus managing a department, I encouraged all my student employees to get trained in First Aid, CPR, and self defense, since many of them would work until 11PM and would be in charge of the facility after I left for the day. I told them to be careful and safe going home, call a friend for a ride, or me, if they felt unsafe.
I also told them that should anyone enter their work areas that made them feel uneasy to call me, or if anyone made them feel unsafe, they were to contact the police ASAP and then call me. I made sure all of them knew that I would rather have them make a mistake and raise a false alarm, than allow themselves or other students to be hurt. I told them this because across the street from where my offices were, was a halfway house, and we’ve had trouble with them in the past.
So, if I’d had the option to arm my employees, would I have done it? Most certainly. Why?, because out the 100 or so students who worked for me, only two of them proved to be so irresponsible that I had to fire them. The rest were very responsible, very serious about their schooling, and very well behaved. Now maybe my assistant and I were just real good at hiring people, but I choose to think that by the time a student is old enough to legally be able to carry, they are responsible enough to be able to do so (or have already proven to the courts that they aren’t), and they know themselves well enough to know if they have the strength of character to do so. In short, without any evidence to the contrary, I would give the students the benefit of the doubt.
Second, as to my post at TheLineIsHere, you seem to have missed the point. I was not posting to argue for Campus Carry, but rather, I was encouraging people to prepare to care for themselves and their loved ones should the shit hit the fan. Ask yourself, if you were driving down the highway and a horrible accident happened right in front of you, or happened to you would you know how to help those you could help? Would you know what to do, or, more importantly, would you know what NOT to do? If you got hit by a bad storm, a hurricane, a tornado, a fire, an earthquake, a home invader, or a flash flood, do you have a plan? Do you have the training to implement that plan? Does the rest of your family know the plan and have your practiced it?
If your plan is, as was the case for thousands of people in NOLA, to call 911 and wait for rescue, you are in a world of trouble. As I have been told countless times by the Policemen, the Firemen, and the Paramedics teaching my CERT class, if the shit hits the fan, call 911, but never assume they are going to get there in time to help. Maybe they are busy at an industrial explosion, or busy with a bank robbery, or a 50 car pileup on the freeway. Maybe traffic is real bad. Doesn’t matter, the fact is, they might not get there, and to be honest, they have no legal obligation to save you! Police are obligated to protect the community by investigating crime in an effort to catch a perpetrator, protecting you is merely a side effect of that duty. Same with Firemen, if they arrive at your house and it is busy burning, they will have to decide if they can effectively fight it, and if they can’t, they are gonna let it burn and just make sure it doesn’t spread. Involved in a 50 car pileup? EMS will arrive, triage you, and if you are too far gone, they are gonna let you go.
Community emergency services are obligated to do the most good for the most people protecting your possessions, your home, your ass, is incidental to that mission.
So my point was, in an emergency, call the professionals, but don’t count on them.
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February 24th, 2008 at 12:48 pmdolphin says:
MRS,
That’s all well and good (and long), but it doesn’t address the point of my post at all. The “thrust” of the campus carry counterargument IS NOT (as you claim) “whatever you do, DON’T BOTHER TO DO ANYTHING TO HELP YOURSELF.” The thrust of the argument is that there always multiple ways to address any problem and ALL options have their costs and and benefits. Reasonable people can discuss and disagree on how the costs and benefits of any given option come out in the end, but only if they first agree that there are multiple ways to handle it. If one approaches the discussion from the viewpoint that one way is the only possible way and the absence of that one way means “whatever you do, DON’T BOTHER TO DO ANYTHING TO HELP YOURSELF” then they are being unreasonable and there’s no point in discussing it with them.
That’s the point of my post. Your post was not a pro-campus carry post, and my post was not an anti-campus carry argument, but I think we need to decide on this issue before any discussion of campus carry can even begin.
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February 24th, 2008 at 3:44 pmSouthern Beale says:
Good post, Dolphin.
I have no problem leaving *some* things to the professionals, especially where people’s lives are involved and a mistake could be deadly. (Here’s an example I posted last week.) I don’t want my accounting or geography professor to be an expert in who is a threat and who’s not, who requires deadly force and who doesn’t. I want them to know about accounting and geography.
And I think it’s very telling that if you ask law enforcement people, they are almost unanimously opposed to the kind of citizen intervention that the conceal carry folks propose.
Finally, I agree with you that “it’s a false dichotomy to suggest that your only choices are to carry a gun or do nothing at all.”
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February 24th, 2008 at 4:18 pmMadRocketScientist says:
Except my post was not about campus carry, but rather about a growing attitude among people that they are not able to help themselves. That somehow Emergency Services is the be all end all during an emergency.
As for you, I get the feeling that your attitude is that students should defend themselves by any means EXCEPT firearms, whereas I feel that firearms should be available to any person who is legally able to. I fail to understand why we discriminate against college students except out of an irrational fear.
If we had evidence of campuses allowing CCW and having problems with responsible use, or with weapons being stolen, or with an increase in suicide with a firearm, I would be more willing to agree with you that maybe college students are not responsible enough, or that the academic environment is just inappropriate for some reason.
But since we are lacking any such evidence, I hold my position, that denying responsible users the right to carry is legislating through fear, which is exactly the wrong way to legislate (re: the US Patriot Act).
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February 24th, 2008 at 4:55 pmdolphin says:
Which in your post, you explicitly cited as “the thrust of the second campus carry counter argument.” How exactly does that make your post “not about campus carry?”
Regardless of what your “feelings” are, my position is and continues to be that college administrators ought to be able to weigh the risks for themselves and make the decision on gun policy based on what’s best for their campus (and if you don’t like whatever the policy is, then you’re free to attend a campus that holds the opposite policy). As for the students (and this is really the crux of this post), I think we offer them a great disservice by teaching them a specific solution to a specific problem in lieu of the critical thinking skills necessary to discover and evaluate solutions to any problem they encounter.
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February 24th, 2008 at 7:08 pmMadRocketScientist says:
First off, from the very quote you took from my post, it is obvious I was talking about an attitude of “don’t help yourself, just call the pros and wait. Please tell me where, anywhere, I specifically said use a gun, or don’t do anything. My point about campus carry is that in posts against it, one of the prevailing arguments is “a CCW student would be useless, or would only be a danger to others, so don’t allow them and call the pros.” This is an attitude that transcends responding to violent crime and extends to disasters and other emergencies. It is a dangerous attitude as it fosters a dependence upon government, a government that can not provide such services to everyone consistently.
And in no place did I ever advocate for teaching students that firearm violence is the only way to settle any situation, only that there are situations where it is important and students should have the right to exercise that solution. Our kids spend 12 years in public school learning ways to settle disputes non-violently, and yet, the real world occasionally presents us with situations where deadly force is necessary. As wonderful as it would be for everyone in our society to know martial arts, the reality is they don’t, and firearms offer a way for a shy 110 lbs girl to repel a 250 lbs man intent on rape, despite her best efforts to avoid the situation in the first place.
Maybe you could stop treating the adults who are in college as children.
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February 24th, 2008 at 7:31 pmMadRocketScientist says:
Oh, one more thing, I agree with you that a campus should be allowed to govern themselves and set their own policies regarding weapons on campus.
I also think that a campus should be held to account for that decision. If a campus chooses to disarm its students, it should be held open to lawsuits should a student be subjected to a violent crime while on campus. Of course, such a policy would worry me as campuses report crime shoddily enough as it is (I’ve had friends who worked for, or had experiences with, various campus police organizations, and the level of pressure to under-report crime is significant).
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February 24th, 2008 at 7:46 pmdolphin says:
I agree. That’s exactly what I’m responding to. That is an INCORRECT summation of the campus carry counter argument.
You said that the counter argument to having a gun on campus is “whatever you do, DON’T BOTHER TO DO ANYTHING TO HELP YOURSELF.” Can we agree on that? It’s your own words for chrissake.
What I’m saying, is that you don’t have to have a gun to “do anything to help yourself.” If you don’t disagree with that statement but you do disagree with the campus carry counter argument, then CLEARLY that is NOT the campus carry counter argument (as you stated that it was). You can’t simultaneously agree and disagree with the same position.
Nor have I suggested you did. Strawmen won’t work here, because I’ll point them out for what they are, then ignore them.
Firearm violence is a specific way to settle a specific situation. I’m arguing that we’d be better to learn the overall principles and critical thinking skills to uncover solutions to our problem in ANY situation. When we focus on a specific application instead of overarching principles, we limit ourselves to only being able to act when the criteria for that situation are in place. It’s the difference between memorizing that 2+2=4 and learning addition.
And maybe you could stop treating the adults who are college administrators as children.
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February 24th, 2008 at 10:31 pmMadRocketScientist says:
What I’m saying, is that you don’t have to have a gun to “do anything to help yourself.
I agree, students in that lecture hall at NIU could have thrown books, or chairs, or anything at hand, at the the shooter to take him off kilter long enough for a tackle, but instead they all hid or ran because none seem to have been taught how to properly act against such violence. Discussions of CCW on campus afterwards tended toward the idea that armed students could have done nothing and only the police would have been able to stop the shooter. I merely parroted that argument as indicative of a greater problem. Your discussions with me at AuntB’s was not the only place I sourced from.
Seeing as we are discussing firearms as a solution to a problem on a campus, your statement here implies that somehow those who are advocating campus carry are advocating a single solution, rather than a final piece in an entire mindset of self-protection through situational awareness, avoidance, preparedness, and self-reflection. No strawman is being built here. If you feel, as I do, that students should learn how to protect themselves as I described above, how to critically evaluate a situation and work to extricate themselves from it before violence is needed, then we agree to a point. I hold that if we are to give them the tools to protect themselves, we give them ALL of the tools they desire within the scope of the law. If a campus chooses to ban weapons, then that campus should be held liable for it’s failure to protect it’s students from violence. If a campus permits weapons, then that campus puts the onus of protection on the student, and the student must choose how they would provide for their own defense.
Now, most states only issue CCW to persons over 21 with no criminal background. That means after a student leaves High School, a campus has 3 years to help students learn to protect themselves. Most campuses pay a good amount of lip service to the ideal, but fail to really deliver. It was one of the things I did like about my campus, it offered numerous martial arts as elective classes, and hosted even more free clubs for students to continue practicing with, along with regular seminars, and a couple of programs to provide students a safe way to get home. It was not perfect, but it was at least an effort.
As for College Admins, I’ve followed campus politics for most of my adult life, and most admins are more worried about their own asses and reputations than they are the students.
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February 24th, 2008 at 10:31 pmMadRocketScientist says:
crap, what tag do you use for quotes?
[editor's note from dolphin: You can use <blockquote> </blockquote>. I fixed it in your comment.]
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February 25th, 2008 at 11:38 amMadRocketScientist says:
Thank you very much sir, sorry about the mess, I’ll try to be neater next time.
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February 25th, 2008 at 1:18 pmdolphin says:
Here are my problems with your campus liability argument. First, you say that you are not arguing that the student has either the option of a gun or nothing at all, yet, can’t you at least see how it sounds that way when you say something like:
How that reads to me is: “If the school permits guns, then they shouldn’t be liable, because the student can do something. If the school prohibits guns, then they should be liable, because the student can’t do anything.”
That sounds like a guns or nothing argument to me.
Second, a student with a gun can get shot, if one even happens to be around. You want to hold schools liable for a policy that 99% of the time is completely irrelevant to the outcome of the situation. Would you be so fast to hold a gun-permitting school liable for the results of and accidental (or worse, an intentional) shooting with a legal gun? I suspect not. You’re not talking about making things fair and just, you’re talking about legislatively punishing schools that disagree with you and rewarding schools that agree with you. That’s social engineering.
As for school administrators, you may or may not be right (I happen to know a few who are very concerned about their students). Either way, they are in the positions they are in. If you don’t like the way they do their jobs, then gather your reasonings for why they are doing a bad job and present it to the board that hired them, or better yet become one and show them how it’s done.
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February 25th, 2008 at 6:50 pmMadRocketScientist says:
Actually, most campuses prohibit weapons carry of any kind. For example, at times, when carrying a firearm is not a good idea (like when I got to a bar), I carry an ASP (Collabsible Baton) along with my walking stick. Many campuses would prohibit this, along with devices like Tasers and Pepper/CS Spray. If a campus denies students the right to devices that act as force equalizers then that campus should potentially be liable for students who are victims of violence while on campus property.
See, it is not a question of guns or nothing, it is a question of percieved versus actual safety. A campus is, by denying adults the right to carry legally (guns or otherwise), making a statement that the campus is accepting responsibility for the students safety while on campus, therefore the campus should be liable for failing to provide that protection.
Offer the students access to any and all means of self defense while on campus, and the campus relieves itself not only of the responsibility of protecting students, but also relieves the responsibility of an accident with a weapon, as a person who carries concealed legally accepts all responsibility for that weapon. So, say I carry my sidearm at the mall, and somehow I get trampled by a herd of children, which causes (somehow) my weapon to discharge and injure someone. Legally, the mall has no liability since it was only following the law by allowing me, a legal permit holder, to carry. Now, a mall may prohibit CCW, but it does so not out of fear of losing a lawsuit, but rather out of fear of having to bear the cost of defending against one.
So it my scenario, the school that allows CCW is not held liable for any violence on campus. As it stands right now, most campuses prohibit students the means to protect themselves (except certain half measures), yet bear no legal responsibility for failing to protect them.
The right of a person to provide for their own self defense trumps any right others might think they have to “feel safe”. And remember, I don’t think the solution to every conflict or situation is a sidearm, but I do feel that adult students have the right to make that choice for themselves (and bear the consequences of that choice themselves), and an open campus should either allow these adults their rights, or risk paying for the privilege of limiting them.
Regarding admins, might be the difference between small private versus large public campuses, I could believe a small private campus would have a leadership that really cares and is invested in the quality of the campus for the long term.
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February 25th, 2008 at 8:21 pmdolphin says:
I’m not allowed to alter my townhouse by installing bars on the windows (even if I wanted to). If someone breaks in via window, should I be able to sue my landlord for not letting me protect myself?
I think the onus is ALWAYS on the student to protect themselves. College attendance is not mandatory, and not all colleges have the same policies. If a given student feels that they require a weapon to be safe, then they are free to not attend a school that would prohibit them from carrying one. In the same vein, many students feel they require a weapon-free campus to be safe, and they are free to choose a school which prohibits weapons. A weapons-free campus is that way in order to keep students safe just as much as a weapons-allowed campus is.
Anyways, we’re quite a way off the original topic now, and I think we’re at a point where we should simply agree to disagree.
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February 25th, 2008 at 9:27 pmMadRocketSci says:
Quite right, we shall have to agree to disagree.
Thanks for a stimulating conversation, been a pleasure!
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February 29th, 2008 at 11:42 pmFlying Junior says:
Oh, one more thing, I agree with you that a campus should be allowed to govern themselves and set their own policies regarding weapons on campus.
Wouldn’t most people pick a gun-free campus?
Dolphin really boiled down the whole argument to it’s core. You have to be willing to kill or seriously harm your antagonist. Are you going to carry a gun at all times until you finally have the chance to use it heroically? Maybe you can have a brief Hollywood style stand-off if you’re lucky. If four or five guys in the cafeteria all had guns, wouldn’t even more people get shot? I wonder if any of the bad guy psychos might sign up to carry one.
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March 27th, 2008 at 10:02 pmFreedomSight » Blog Archive » Followup on Martial Arts for Self Defense says:
[...] that is as good a response as anyone needs to the thinking displayed here: If someone were to burst into my office right now with a weapon and the clear intent to use it, I [...]