Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Guns on College Campus: Controversial & Then Some!

Chief Acevedo started a shit storm this morning by saying he doesn't like the idea of CHLs carrying guns on campus. He moderated his position when somebody said 'what about grad students and professors' and he could consider that. Then for the next two hours until I got tired of the jackassery I was listening to people talk straight past each other. There are two camps of people, and apparently Reasoned Discourse has no effect on radio callers waiting to speak instead of listening to others speaking.
Camp 1) CHL Guns on campus means people who are less arrest-prone than Police are given the option to protect themselves without the fear of arrest for carrying a gun
Camp 2) CHL Guns on campus means drunk, depressed, hormones raging, barely-not-teenagers whipping out their guns to settle petty disputes
Camp 3) CHL Guns on campus is already an option - for the school. The school gets to say who carries, and most schools say "don't carry." This is arguably unfortunate, but there is a law on the books to defend the right of the school to say what will fly on their land.
The problem with crowd 2 is that Crowd 1 has the law and statistics on their side. But then crowd #2 comprises soft-headed liberruls who are swayed by emotion rather than reason, so there is no use in speaking to them. Act appropriately regardless and things will come out just fine. #3 is the crowd you need to sway, if you just HAVE to have an argument. The goal might be to convince them that a PUBLIC school ought to let people do things on campus they can do in a PUBLIC park. But good luck with that . . . the university policies are set by people who are 100% in crowd #2!

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