Guest Commentary Opinion

Guest column: Pichowsky misses the mark on campus carry

In the Oct. 21 edition of The Cougar, opinion columnist Samuel Pichowsky argues that “campus carry does not make this school safer.” The piece is full of inconsistencies and inaccuracies and it misrepresents concealed carry on campus.

In his article, Mr. Pichowsky highlights the experience of John Parker Jr., an Umpqua Community College student who was carrying a concealed weapon at the time of the Oct. 1 mass shooting. Despite his presence, the shooter was able to flee the scene before law enforcement could track down and neutralize him. Pichowsky argues that the actions of Parker dispel the myth of a “good guy with a gun” being able to stop a bad guy with a gun; even though there was a licensed concealed weapon carrier present, the murderer was able to go about his rampage undeterred. Thus, concealed carry on campus does not make us safer. Or so the logic goes.

Alas, anecdotes are not data and exceptions do not disprove the rule. The fact is that “good guys with guns” prevent thousands of crimes every single day. Drs. Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz, criminologists at Florida State, show that firearms are used in self defense as many as 2.5 million times every single year. Even conservative estimates put the number at well over a million.

Pichowsky also seems to misunderstand the purpose of a concealed handgun license. No one is saying that Parker should have tried to track down and stop the shooter on his own. Concealed carry is not about turning every CHL holder into a vigilante, it is about giving individuals the ability to protect themselves in those situations where they are unable to flee. One wonders how things may have been different had Chris Mintz (an Army veteran who was injured while attempting to save his fellow students at the shooting) been carrying a concealed handgun.

Pichowsky’s second argument is based solely on his own subjective sense of safety. He writes: “Campus carry does not make me or any other student I talk to feel safer on campus.” Unfortunately, in the world of objective reality, whether or not one feels safe is completely irrelevant to whether or not one is actually safe. Choosing whether to carry a gun or not does not affect one’s risk of being victimized; it only affects one’s ability to fight back.

Pichowsky closes by offering some advice. First, “do not bring your weapon” to school. Second, if you should ever find yourself in an active shooter situation “call the police and get to safety.” If only it were that easy. I wonder if the 18 students at Umpqua had tried to “call the police,” or the 19 students at UC Santa Barbara, or the 54 at Virginia Tech…as the saying goes “When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.”

You can choose to follow Pichowsky’s advice, but as for me, when the law goes into effect next fall, I will legally carry my weapon on campus to protect myself, my students and my colleagues.

Jacob Smith is a fifth-year PhD Candidate in Economics at the University of Houston and a Concealed Handgun License holder and can be reached through email at [email protected]

50 Comments

    • Curiously, Mr. Smith recently tried to join Gun Free UH, but was denied. Mr. Smith thinks being denied to an advocacy group which concerns itself with opposing S.B. 11 is being “intellectually dishonest.” However, one wonders how intellectually honest it is, when everyone one of SCC UH members’ rebuttals and retorts against those against S.B. 11 must come from their SCCS headquarters which supplies them with a “Handbook” consisting of a laundry list of lengthy replies to S.B.11 and gun rights opposition. (I have a copy.) What we have are nearly 500 petitioners on our Change.org petition, over 85 members in our FB group, (prvate now, thanks to Mr. Smith’s shenanigans,) and well over 200 UH students, faculty, staff, alumni, and supporters on our mailing list — all of which grow daily. What Mr. Smith has are a few misguided students being exploited by an NRA front-group whose thinking must be done for them, then spoon fed to them by way of FB posts – none of said posts or rebuttals being supported by empirical data or published studies. Our literature resources include one of the finest Gun Study databases available on the web consisting of peer-reviewed articles and monographs across a wide spectrum of issues touching on gun violence and growing. Among our UH membership we count numerous scholars and intellectuals. Smith’s group consists of mostly of a handful of naive, trigger-happy students itching for for a showdown at the OK Coral.

        • Do you really know who started shooting, was it the cops, or the bikers?

          You really don’t have the full picture, do you?

      • From Google Translate… “We can’t take people having a differing opinion than us. We think that the people who don’t agree with us have a book of rebuttals because they can’t think of a valid argument to carry concealed weapons on campus (of which there are many). We have 500 petitioners that aren’t all current students and 85 whole members which is WAY more than SCC’s 182. We even have a junk email list with 200 people on it yay which “grows daily” (unable to translate). We are “smarter” than you so if you come at us we will shove big words in your face and try to make you feel inferior.”

        Thought I’d take the last one myself.

        You obviously don’t get the idea of CONCEALED carry. I for one will be carrying and NO I will NOT be “itching for a showdown”. People like you obviously don’t think with their head…

        • Kris, like I’ve always told the hundreds, if not thousands of Concealed Carry Citizens I have trained over the years, “CONCEALED MEANS CONCEALED!!” 🙂

        • The thing is Kris, you think you are soooo smart! In reality it is people like you that are killing our 2nd amendment. There are 330 million people in our country. The vast majority don’t own guns. When they get fed up enough with the extreme, they will change the 2nd. I went hunting last weekend with family. Everyone has cancelled their NRA membership in the last couple of years. All of them think that the NRA sponsored legislation has gone too far. You throw around the liberal word as if it was a bad word because you think it is popular. The majority of the people hunting last weekend were not liberal. In fact, one is a delegate to the RNC. Don’t forget our founding fathers were the liberals of their day!

          • Do I care who you hunt with or that they’re with the NRA or not? No. And YES liberal IS a wordy dirty. Its a descriptor for the intellectually dishonest hypocrite. come to think of it did I even mention the NRA? And please David, oh PLEASE tell me how I’m “killing the 2nd amendment.” Baseless accusations…tisk tisk

  • Jacob Smith bases his argument on a highly contested study at best (a ridiculed study at worst). The 2.5-million number doesn’t hold out, even within Kleck’s own paper, as a
    solid, indisputable number. It’s the high end of an extrapolated
    estimate, and it’s based on 20-year-old data. Citing it now, as the NRA
    and other gun advocates do, doesn’t make sense, even if you think
    Hemenway is wrong or biased. Also, it doesn’t—as even Kleck points
    out—indicate that 2.5 million crimes were prevented, even though that’s
    almost always the implication.

    Also,
    citing that number doesn’t justify arming teachers, students, and staff. For the record, Kleck thinks arming
    teachers is a bad idea.

    The numerous well-research studies that do exist all point to one undeniable fact: where there are guns, people are injured or killed. Two people die due to gun-related accidents every day in the US. Arguments are the number one cause of gun-related homicides in the US. One of the most important things we do in college is learn how to argue. Guns make what is an already difficult, yet necessary aspect of learning impossible. If Smith really did have the safety concerns of his community in mind, he should keep his gun at home and not endanger the rest of us.

    • SO much wrong with this. I think you really miss the point, as do most liberals on most things. You think and are lead by your emotions instead of using your head… More people die from knives everyday, more people die in car accidents everyday. LETS GET RID OF EVERYTHING THAT CAUSES OR COULD CAUSE DEATH OMG OMG. You make an EXTREMELY weak argument…

      No one is saying YOU should have a gun on campus, its your choice to stand there and die.

      • Umm… critiquing an op-ed by citing how NUMEROUS studies have already debunked an outdated and poorly researched study is actually a reasoned response, dear Kris. The conversation is about guns on campus. Let’s stay on topic, shall we?

    • Lina, if you want heated debates, go to a shooting range and ask which pistol is better, a Browning Hi-Power or a Glock 19.
      The “feelings” on this matter are irrelevant … this is legislation, not opinion. I can only hope that UH comes up with a fair policy that doesn’t infringe upon students, visitors, and faculties rights to legally conceal carry. Myself and my wife have both had to rely on UHPD in many instances, and it’s a helluva wait when you spot somebody breaking into your car as you walk across the parking lot, especially late at night when the officers on duty are tied up escorting the good-looking girls (never the fat ones) from the library, when it closes.

      • Funny, Pontious, how you use your own personal anecdotes, your own hopes and your own assumptions (and not-so-mildly misogynistic ones at that) to justify concealed carry. You are right: your “feelings” on this matter ARE irrelevant. Especially since your feelings make it impossible for you to engage with the fact that the study cited by this op-ed has been thoroughly disputed, if not debunked. Neither have you engaged with the numerous studies that HAVE proved the elevated risk of injury, assault, harassment, and homicide wherever guns are present. Can you address those studies instead of your own personal feelings and anecdotes? Consider these studies by the Harvard Injury Control Research Center. http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/gun-threats-and-self-defense-gun-use-2/ These studies thoroughly debunk the oft-cited myth of self-defense as the number one reason for gun use. Instead, what these studies do show is that, statistically, the major reason people DO turn to gun use is either to intimidate and/or as an effect of escalating arguments.

        • Ha! he noticed that too?? They probably drain the battery too fast to make it across the parking lot… (are you offended yet LINA????) I hope so…

          You can find studies on both sides and poke holes in all the data, so whats the point? Would you like to find a study for your argument so I can have the pleasure of dispelling it?? pretty please???

          • Good job, Kris! You finally get my point: the entire premise of this editorial is based on a bogus study. So glad that you are smart enough to acknowledge that! Bravo!

            • Hemenway’s so-called studies comprise junk science. The simple fact is this –

              Between 1994 and 2012, the number of privately owned firearms rose from 192 million to over 300 million at the same time homicides decreased 49% and violent crime decreased 72%. If your claims were factual, we would at the very least see some increase across the period.

              • Nothing is just a simple fact, now is it, Rich7553? Guess what also happened, starting in 1994? That year was roughly 20 years after Roe v Wade (Supreme Court decision that made abortion safe, accessible, and legal). Guess what also happened: lead abatement policies in gasoline went into effect. These two reasons (and, arguably, the latter is most compelling) have presented much more credible evidence as to why crime rates have gone down since the crime wave of the 1960s than your “simple” fact. Your statement does shine a light on one actual simple fact, however: More studies are needed on the effect of guns on violence broadly speaking in our society. Yet the NRA has systematically barred the Centers for Disease Control’s ability to conduct studies. Why? Because studies were finding (gasp!) that more guns were leading to more injuries and death. http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link-gasoline

                http://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2013/02/gun-violence.aspx

                • Wrong again Lisa. First, Congress ceased funding that the CDC funded “studies” like Hemenway’s because of the demostrably false conclusions reached through faulty statistical methodology including baseless exclusion of elements of the dataset and application of statistical reduction methods incompatible for use with small sample sizes. This is known as “cherry picking”.

                  As to the allegation of the removal of lead from gasoline and other sources, pray tell why the surge in violent crime began about 1968 when prior to that there was even more lead in products such as paint, guns were available in local hardware stores, and we did not have anywhere near the violent crime of 1968 – 1994? If lead was a factor, the surge in violent crime would coincide with the time when lead exposure was most likely, would it not?

                  You see, a closer correlation can easily be made to the introduction of the Gun Control Act of 1968 taking previously easily available firearms for self-defense and making them harder to obtain for law-abiding citizens, thus handing the advantage to the criminal, who could care less about laws.

                  Need more correlation? FBI/DOJ data show the increase beginning in 1968, peaking about 1994, then plunging by double digits to its current level. So what happened in 1994? Following Florida’s lead in 1987, by 1994 over half the states in the nation adopted similar shall-issue licensing laws for concealed carry permits. Since that time, gun control has been loosened with more states adopting shall-issue and some doing away with licensing requirements altogether. According to the DOJ, both the homicide and violent crime rates have now returned to their pre-1968 levels.

                  The DOJ also found that 61% of gun using felons fear encountering armed citizens more than police. Not a single one said it’s because they quit eating lead.

                  Finally, if you wish to be taken seriously, you need to quit using left wing propaganda rags like Mother Jones as reputable sources. They simply regurgitate the junk science troweled out by Hemenway’s propaganda mill. Try using independently verifiable neutral sources instead and quit simply taking their word for it.

                  • Oh, dear me, Rich7553. You are so amazingly right on so many points! Where to begin? First, on lead: The led effect happens when a generation of kids are exposed to high lead levels. Gas lead in tons per 1,000 people from 1937-1986 was indeed on a steady rise, from .3 tons per 1,000 in 1937 to about 1 ton in late 1940s, to about 1.3 tons per 1,000 in the early 1970s. And then controls on lead went into effect , steadily lowering the levels of lead from the 1970s until 1986 to their current rates at below .3. Guess what happened 20 years after the rates rose? (1930-1950s; 1940-1960s) a steady rise in crime. By 1990s, ie 20 years after the government in the 1970s started to implement led control, crime began to drop. So yes, there was much more lead prior to 1968 (in the 1940s), kids were exposed, then they grew up and committed violent crime.

                    You are also right about congress shutting down CDC studies. But it was not because of cherry picking as you like to suggest. It was because the findings from various studies, not just Hemenway’s, were pointing to the fact that where there are more guns, more injuries, suicides, and homicides occur. The NRA did not like this and used its mighty might to shut those studies down. http://www.businessinsider.com/cdc-nra-kills-gun-violence-research-2013-1

                    • With regards to lead, you’ve presented your assertion, and I have presented mine. The readers can decide.

                      As to your second assertion, “…pointing to the fact that where there are more guns, more injuries, suicides, and homicides occur.” I answer with the question, so what is the cause? The presence of lead or the presence of guns?

                      I would submit that the answer is neither. I would submit it is that both the judicial system and the mental health system are to blame and this is where we can cut gun violence, violent crime, spree shootings, and all the other misery caused by 0.003% of gun owners without even inconveniencing the law abiding gun owner. It would be a nightmare to make happen, but it would solve over 80% of gun violence and other violent crime.

                      Most (80% or better) gun crime is committed by recidivist felons per the FBI. Much of the remainder is committed by close associates of felons, often having been charged with felonies, but took a plea bargain to a misdemeanor. We also know that most gun crime occurs where higher concentrations of felons can be found, many in urban areas. So the question becomes, if the goal is to dramatically lessen gun crime, then why are those statistically provable to be most apt to misuse a firearm on the streets with the law abiding? Because the judicial system allows it by releasing on a calendar date instead of when the person is deemed to no longer be a danger to society, and the prisons do nothing to rehabilitate the prisoner so he can actually learn something marketable.

                      The mental health system used to be pretty good overall, and although most families with relatives who had a mental illness had little problem getting them treated and evaluated for possible commitment. Now, there are people walking the street in outpatient status if being helped at all, who thirty years ago would have been institutionalized. Sueng Hui Cho, the VT shooter, had been seen by psychiatrists and was involuntarily committed as a young teen. This information should have immediately tagged him as a prohibited person in the NICS system for life. But less than half of the states submit mental heath data to the system, and much of what is submitted is incomplete. Your much hated NRA publicly supports mandatory complete mental health data to NICS from all states. However, as demonstrated by NY, the system can and is being abused. Federal law is quite clear on what constitutes grounds for denial of a firearms transfer. NY has submitted thousand of records of cases that do not meet the federal criteria, and patently refuses to correct the data without being sued by the individual.

                      So like I said, it’s no picnic, but if you want a huge and relatively speedy result of less violent crime, then this will work, without the need for all these silly, ineffective, and politically motivated proposals out of the gun control lobby.

                      But if your ideology is simply “because…gun” then we have nothing more to discuss.

                    • I do agree that law abiding, well-trained CHL holders who responsibly take care of their guns, ensure they are stored in a safe place, and who consistently work on their gun skills should not be inconvenienced, Rich7553. More broadly, I nevertheless do think sensible overarching gun control laws that do not criminalize gun owners, but rather restrict large capacity magazines at the federal level need to be put into effect. Large capacity magazines ultimately increase mass lethality without any clear hunting or self-defense application. Mass shooters, after all (28 of whom since 2007 by the way were CHL holders), have been most effectively stopped when they have had to stop shooting and reload. Restricting the production and sale of large capacity magazines in effective ways will get them out of circulation, and also out of the hands of those ‘bad guys’ who may or may not have been exposed to lead in their youth. You might find this analysis on high capacity magazines, pro and con interesting (especially since it gets quite detailed on gun magazine specs): http://www.thetrace.org/2015/07/magazine-capacity-limit-explainer/

                      Ultimately, my gripe is not with guns in general, but with legally allowing CHL holders to bring guns into university classrooms, dorms, offices, etc. (as per SB11 here in Texas). It is my constitutionally protected duty to ensure a safe learning environment free from intimidation. I will ask my student CHL holders come time for SB11’s implementation to please leave their guns safely stored outside my classroom precisely so I may maintain control over the safety of my students and myself. I understand, as CHL holders are exceptionally law abiding, that in general they would comply with my request. Some, perhaps not. And I would have no way of knowing. Neither would my students. This fact of uncertainty brings a new level of tension to what already is a challenging environment for college students (and professors). Not only is the potential for physical injury augmented exponentially (there have already been several instances of accidental/negligent discharges on university campuses that allow CHL holders to bring guns). But it has the potential to inhibit discussion of sensitive topics. And, as you might imagine, I welcome debate. Thanks, Rich7553 for what I must admit has been quite a sensible debate.

                    • “Critics of the restrictions are not mollified by such work-arounds. They argue that even
                      police trained in how to handle shooting situations require many shots
                      to defend themselves, so magazines that small could negate a gun’s
                      self-defense purpose,”

                      This is taken from your Trace article. Please note that in other countries (Switzerland, New Zealand, Italy, Czech Republic – and the Czech Republic has concealed carry on campus) where semi-autos and large magazines aren’t banned, there aren’t as many mass killings.

                    • “But it has the potential to inhibit discussion of sensitive topics.”

                      Why don’t you ask professors in Utah and Colorado and Idaho how they have dealt with campus carry?

                    • I’d love to ask Professor Lawrence Levine at Umpqua Community College, as well as eight of the students enrolled in his class what they think about campus carry in Oregon, especially as it applies to their campus. Unfortunately, they are dead.

                    • the thing is, though, the murderer didn’t simply snap right at that moment because of a mere discussion of a sensitive topic right there in the classroom – he had planned this thing for a long time.

                    • The better metric is, how am I, let alone you, are supposed to know that professors in Utah, Idaho, Colorado, all have been reluctant to discuss “sensitive topics?” How am I, let alone you, supposed to extrapolate that those same students came away from those colleges with lower quality education vs those colleges that banned guns, because somehow their ability to critically think was not nurtured because college professors were too scared to talk about sensitive topics?

                      Case in point: Ben Carson – graduated from Yale undergrad and University of Michigan for medical school, a renowned neurosurgeon, yet a complete idiot on the debate stage – and we all know that guns aren’t allowed at Yale or U of M.

                    • Consider a well-known and studied psychological phenomenon: the “weapons effect.”
                      https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/get-psyched/201301/the-weapons-effect#_edn1
                      A review of 56 published studies confirms that the mere sight of weapons increases aggression in both angry and non-angry individuals. This, in turn suggests that the presence of weapons will bring more aggression to classrooms. The first study in this line: Berkowitz, L., & LePage, A. (1967). Weapons as aggression-eliciting stimuli. Journal ofPersonality and Social Psychology, 7, 202–207. See

                    • The keyword here is “sight” – vs “concealed” – there’s the flaw right there and then.

                    • And consider that this so-called weapons effect, has not always been reproducible:

                      jstor dot org/stable/2786192?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

                      Does the Trigger Pull the Finger? An Experimental Test of Weapons as Aggression-Eliciting Stimuli

                      Desmond P. Ellis, Paul Weinir and Louie Miller, III

                      Sociometry

                      Vol. 34, No. 4 (Dec., 1971), pp. 453-465″

                      “The Berkowitz and Le Page hyothesis that weapons elicit aggressive
                      behaviour was tested under the following conditions. 104 subjects were
                      given an opportunity to shock a student or policeman confederate after
                      receiving no shocks, 2 shocks or 8 shocks. Some subjects delivered their
                      shocks in the presence of weapons, others in the absence of weapons and
                      still others in the presence of weapons obviously belonging to the
                      policeman confederate. In this study weapons were found not to function
                      as aggression-eliciting stimuli. Instead, for nonangered students given
                      an opportunity to shock a student confederate, weapons inhibited
                      aggressive behaviour. Weapons also tended to inhibit aggressive
                      behaviour among angered students given an opportunity to shock the
                      policeman confederate. Berkowitz’ explanation of the weapon’s effect is
                      rejected in favor of an operant conditioning (discrimination learning)
                      paradigm.”

                    • link dot springer.com/article/10.3758/BF03329778

                      “Ninety-six male college students were exposed to handguns or no handguns
                      following positive, neutral, or negative personal evaluation. The
                      weapons were explained either as items of defense (“home defense
                      weapons”) or as items of aggression (“guns used in crimes of violent
                      assault”). The dependent measure was hostility or aggression as measured
                      by the Behavior Control Inventory (BCI). The presence or absence of
                      handguns presented as either defensive or offensive weapons was not
                      related to the expression of hostility or aggression. The conclusion is
                      drawn that the weapons effect is a weak variable requiring further
                      research to delineate the conditions of its occurrence.”

                    • Let’s go ahead and talk about your precious shocking-other-people experiment from Berkowitz, too. The one where they couldn’t replicate the results.

                      From the springer article – weapons effect – fact or artifact:

                      Turner and Simons (1974) found that nonapprehensive subjects who knew the purpose of the weapons gave fewer shocks.

                      An attempt by Halderman and Jackson (1979) to replicate the horn-honking study by Turner et al. (1975) in a rural com-munity did not support the weapons effect.

                      Turner et al. concluded that the effect may be negated when the presence of a rifle in the rear window of a pickup truck is commonplace.

                      Buss, Booker, and Buss (1972) found no evidence that shooting a gun under field conditions was related to aggression in the laboratory.

                      Turner and Simons (1974) found that nonapprehensive subjects who knew the purpose of the weapons gave fewer shocks.

                      Furthermore, in a careful replication of the Berkowitz and LePage (1967) study, Buss et al. found that the presence of weapons decreased shocking in a laboratory
                      situation.

                      An attempt by Ellis, Weinir, and Miller (1971) to replicate the Berkowitz and LePage experiment also reported a tendency toward the inhibition of aggressive
                      responding when weapons were present.

                      A recent study (Cahoon & Edmonds, 1984) also reported that the presence or absence of handguns was unrelated to aggressive responding following subjects’ exposure
                      to negative “first impression” feedback.

                    • A flaw from one of the articles in that precious meta-analysis:

                      “A series of follow-up studies by this group (Bartholow, Anderson, Carnagey,&Benjamin, 2005)
                      provided further support for the automatic priming explanation and also showed that previous
                      experience with guns moderates the weapons priming effect. Bartholow et al. recruited
                      participants who either had experience in sport shooting (i.e., hunting or target shooting)
                      or not and in a series of three experiments exposed them to both hunting guns (i.e., guns
                      intended for sport) and assault guns (i.e., guns intended for human violence). As predicted,
                      hunters showed less activation of aggressive thoughts and were less aggressive behaviorally
                      when primed with images of hunting guns compared with assault guns; nonhunters largely
                      did not differentiate between hunting and assault guns (see Berkowitz, 1993, p. 83).”

                      Interestingly enough, why didn’t they ask military veterans or citizens with concealed carry permits to participate in the study?

        • Lina, I personally know of two individuals who have had to draw their legally carried firearm to prevent violence. In both cases they were faced with multiple attackers, at least one of whom had a knife and was threatening to use it on them if they did not hand over their wallet or car keys.

          That’s a fact. And someone’s personal anecdote is worth more than a sheltered person like you citing bullshit studies. I have another anecdote for you, which one of us would a criminal mug if we ran into one in a dark, deserted parking lot? Unarmed Lina? Or heavily armed Former Deputy?

          I already know the answer because I have personally asked the very type of scumbags this very question. The type of scumbags who would love to drag you by your hair and sodomize you in your own car. Have you ever talked to such “men”?

    • First of all, as someone who carries a gun everyday whenever legally possible, how am I “endangering the rest” of the world by doing so? Has there been a rash of firearms that suddenly jumped out of their containers and started indiscriminately shooting people? If so, could you please cite the incidents?

      By your logic anything that causes death should be banned. That would include all vehicles, knives, matches or other fire starters, blunt objects, bath tubs, swimming pools, etc. The reality is you are more likely to get killed in a traffic accident than with a gun that is in the possession of a law-abiding citizen.

      Grow up and quit being such a whinny little brat. You’re probably around people who are carrying firearms all the time and you don’t even know if.

      • Former Deputy, the logic I am proposing is keeping guns out of college dorms, offices, and classrooms. I do not deny the fact that I am sheltered. As a college professor, I it is my constitutionally protected duty to ensure my classroom is a sheltered, safe space, free from precisely the kind of hostility and intimidation you describe. The mere posibility that a gun can be present in a classroom violates my ability to do so. As for you: I am sorry to hear about your personal anecdote of having been pulled by your hair and sodomized in a parking lot. I hope that one day you will be able let go of the pain and hatred you feel. It is my wish for you that you no longer feel the need to insult, intimidate, harrass, or force others into cowering fear in order to feel heard or understood. A virtual hug of peace goes out to you.

        • Lina, based on your response, I fear that you will never understand whatever I or others are trying to tell you. You absolutely misread my post and while I appreciate your offer of a virtual hug, it is not necessary.

          I hope you never look down a barrel of a gun that someone is threatening you with, or feel the cold steel of a knife that is being held to your throat like some of us have. Because you probably would not live.

          I hope you carefully read the following words and understand what they mean: YOUR RIGHT TO FEEL “SAFE” DOES NOT OVERCOME ANYONE ELSE’S RIGHT TO LIVE!!

        • “I it is my constitutionally protected duty to ensure my classroom is a
          sheltered, safe space, free from precisely the kind of hostility and
          intimidation you describe.”

          Where does it say this in the constitution?

          • Supreme court jurisprudence. To paraphrase Supreme Court Justice Frankfurther’s terms, professors are high priests of an open society of freedom essential for democracy to flourish. Each professor is charged with establishing the bonds of trust upon which communication and learning can take place. Anything that harms the circulation of free speech within this community of trust (fear, threats, intimidation) needs to be stopped for democracy to survive. (Wieman v Updegraff, 1952 ).

            • “(fear, threats, intimidation) needs to be stopped for democracy to surviv”

              So how exactly is peaceably carrying a gun a form of intimidation?

            • Added: there is a HUGE difference between brandishing a firearm, which is actual intimidation, and against the law vs concealed carry, which, well, isn’t considered intimidation anywhere else. Critical thinking and debate also occurs in places outside colleges, IE state capitols – and several states allow concealed carry inside the actual chambers, for example, my home state of VA. How exactly have there been problems in those areas?

            • Moreover, how exactly do you plan to control your own classroom when it comes to guns/other weapons? A full on patdown of every single student every single time they enter the classroom? Look how well this so-called “honor system” has worked in every campus massacre.

  • I just want to reiterate something that those of us who live in the real world have known: ONE PERSON’S RIGHT TO “FEEL SAFE” DOES NOT NEGATE ANOTHER PERSON’S RIGHT TO LIVE!!

    Unless those of you who are against this Campus Concealed Carry Movement are willing to put your money and you life where your mouth is, and guarantee that your students and your classmates will never get murdered as the victims of Columbine High School, Virginia Tech, Umpqua Community College, Sandy Hook Elementary, or The Happy Land Disco (NYC); you just need to shut up and leave the rest of us alone. It is just that simple!!

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