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Dispelling the misconceptions about campus carry

Leah Nash/ The Cougar

On August 1, after months of debate and protest, campus carry (SB11) finally went into effect on college campuses across the state, including our own.

Although nothing has happened since campus carry has been implemented, the new semester will bring a horde of students to campus soon. Some of these students will be legally carrying a firearm, which will unnecessarily worry some students.

I want to take this chance to dispel some of the myths surrounding campus carry as perpetuated by some interviews in The Cougar’s Bullet Points series, and why I think it’s a good idea.

First off, not everyone can get a concealed handgun license (CHL). The government isn’t giving out handgun licenses like t-shirts on the first week of school. For some reason, people seem to think that 18-year-olds can get a gun.

You must be at least 21 years old or an active part of the military to even apply for a CHL. Along with that, you cannot have committed any felonies or particular misdemeanors, and you have to be an individual of sound mind. Applicants must also complete a six hour course, a written test and a shooting test to ensure those obtaining CHLs are able to handle the responsibility of carrying a handgun.

The people who hold CHLs aren’t getting them to shoot people, rather, they’re getting CHLs to protect themselves and others. Young adults only made up about 3 percent of all CHL-approved licensees in 2015.

There seems to be this idea being perpetuated by those who don’t like campus carry that allowing CHL holders to carry on campus somehow puts student and staff lives in danger. Allow me to say, that is incomprehensibly ridiculous.

Over the past year, two professors have been killed in their offices.

One was at the hand of an unstable colleague who was also connected to another murder, and ultimately ended up killing himself after being on the run.

The second incident is the murder-suicide that took place at the University of California, Los Angeles earlier this summer. This was not a student upset with grades; he was upset about possible stolen code. Not only had the shooter been making comments about the professor (an obvious warning sign), but he also had a kill list. This is not someone who would pass the CHL application process.

Let’s stop equating CHL holders to killers.

Along with that, there seem to be those who believe that allowing campus carry will create problems for minorities as those with guns will be able to do them harm.

Let me say this again – stop equating law-abiding CHL holders to the people that mean to do harm. UH is one of the most diverse campuses in the nation. People at UH protect and care for one another. CHL holders aren’t seeking out minorities on campus. That way of thinking is just ridiculous. And, if people are so worried about being targeted by those who have a CHL, go get one for yourself. That is your right.

CHLs are for the protection of you and others, so that when police can’t be there, you are.

CHL holders are not here to harm. The people who are CHL holders and will be bringing guns to campus to protect their lives and the lives of their fellow Coogs. That is the only intention of campus carry.

Now, there are complaints that those with CHLs don’t actually stop crimes. In news, there’s an old saying: “If it doesn’t bleed, it doesn’t lead.”

Those who legally carry firearms stop crimes all the time. There’s a story from April 2015 about an Uber driver stopping a potential mass shooting.  In 2002, two law students at the Appalachian School of Law stopped a shooter. They would’ve stopped him sooner if it hadn’t been for a Gun-Free Zone, which the shooter surprisingly ignored. Good guys stop the bad guys all the time. You just don’t hear about it because it’s not juicy.

As someone who has friends that are CHL holders, I honestly can say that campus feels safer because they are allowed to carry on campus. There’s a lot of misinformation surrounding this change in policy, and there are those who are trying to perpetuate the idea that CHL holders are gun nuts.

Let’s start this school year informed and with an understanding of how our campus has changed. As the new school year starts, remember, the good guys with guns are here to keep you safe.

Opinion columnist Jorden Smith is a political science junior and the president of the College Republicans. He can be reached at [email protected]

4 Comments

  • Nice try Jorden. The fact is this law was pushed on the many by the few and is simply not needed. Add one gun into the mix, whether it is the proverbial good guy as you espouse or not, and everyone is in more danger.

  • 6 hours and a test is not adequate time to be given a license to carry a deadly weapon.

    Police go through the academy for 19 weeks in this city before they’re given a license to carry.

    I mean, even I have to go through 4 years of school and 2 eight hour exams before they’ll let me design a road to put on the ground.

    I don’t think anyone thinks that CHL holders are any more or less likely to go on a shooting spree than the next guy, but with so little training required to actually be able to obtain a license to carry you introduce a lot of uncertainty, and a lot more that could possibly go wrong that wouldn’t otherwise.

    Murphy’s Law is a thing, and just by upping the percentage of people carrying deadly weapons on campus you have automatically also upped the chances of something going terribly wrong because of them whether it be of malice or accident.

    I’ll probably be the first in the anti-campus carry camp that will say that the presumed effect of campus carry will be minimal, but as minimal of an effect that I believe it will have, I will also always carry the uncertainty that inherently comes with a larger percentage of people carrying deadly weapons on campus.

  • The most glaring omission in your essay is that you did not provide a single example of a licensed concealed carrier who has ever stopped a crime of any kind at any school. Not one shooting, robbery, rape, carjacking, burglary — nada. On the other hand, there are published reports of license holders who have committed a triple murder-suicide (three professors killed), a double murder, 3 single-victim murders, and at least 10 negligent discharges, with nine woundings, on campuses and school grounds. All destructive bloodshed so far, with no benefit.

    Licensed concealed carriers are also far more likely to offend as active shooters, and far more likely to commit mass murder with a firearm. The FBI studied 160 active shooter incidents from 2000-2013, and found only one stopped by a concealed carrier. But the list of perpetrators contains the names of 15 known license holders. Apply the GAO’s concealed carrier population numbers, and you find licensees were nearly five times as likely to offend as active shooters, compared to non-licensees. In the pool of mass murder shooters (2006-2014), the odds ratios are also remarkable — licensees were nearly three times as likely to offend in single-shooter incidents in which at least four people were killed.

    This is probably why there is such a big push for unlicensed “constitutional carry”. It’s because the record shows that licensed “good guys” have a mass murder problem.

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