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.

Thanks for a stimulating conversation, been a pleasure!

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.

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.

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.

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.

[editor's note from dolphin: You can use <blockquote> </blockquote>. I fixed it in your comment.]

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.

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.

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.["]

I agree. That’s exactly what I’m responding to. That is an INCORRECT summation of the campus carry counter argument.

Please tell me where, anywhere, I specifically said use a gun, or don’t do anything.

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.

And in no place did I ever advocate for teaching students that firearm violence is the only way to settle any situation

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.

Maybe you could stop treating the adults who are in college as children.

And maybe you could stop treating the adults who are college administrators as children.