Lucia

de Vernai

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February 18, 2008

Northern Illinois University Shooting Revives Horrible Idea: Guns on Campus

On the morning following the shootings at Virginia Tech last April, several Korean students missed class here at Arizona State University. We were up together until early morning going over statistical regression, so there had to be another reason that they were missing out on finals review. It turned out that they were afraid to come to class fearing retaliation from students stricken with grief and anger. While we assured our friends there was absolutely nothing to worry about, today – with two university shootings and 12 states considering allowing concealed weapons on school campuses, that may no longer be the case. 

Proponents of these measures in Arizona and states as diverse as Washington and Alabama are quick to point to incidents like the tragic events at Northern Illinois University that left six people, including the shooter, dead as proof that weapons on school grounds are necessary. Some, Arizona among them, are extending that right past the gates of institutions of higher learning and to all public schools – elementary, middle and high schools.

There are two possible driving forces behind the conviction that more weapons on campus will equal safety – hubris and delusion. The first assumes that a gun permit comes with courage, situational assessment and impeccable timing. In reality, law enforcement officers and members of the armed forces go through controlled and repeated training to handle the kind of emergency situations that some legislators seem to think any college student with a 9mm at his waist can also achieve.

The delusion belongs to those who believe themselves capable of defending themselves and others in a situation like the one students in Illinois faced last week. When you have a semiautomatic pointed in your face, the grand visions of pulling a Vin Diesel in Organic Chemistry are worthless. You’ll be dead before you put down your beaker, much less reach for your ammo.

Mental and moral preparation to possess a weapon has as much, if not more, to do with the environment as it does with the owner. Those who are quick to say that this will even things out, that now the good guys will be armed have a disturbingly simple point of view. The pure presence of weapons around others may be the biggest concern. You as the gun owner may be a perfectly trustworthy individual, the guy in the row behind you might not be. When chaos strikes, permits are formalities forgotten with the first shot. The confusion, primal fear and survival instincts are explosive enough. Add multiple firearms and it is bound to go from bad to worse.

Students should never be afraid to come to school, irrespective of whether they fear a maniac or race, religion or nationality-based retaliation. Gun owners don’t like relying on others to protect them and feel the need to count on their own skill – not the rationality and goodwill of their fellow man. That’s not different for those who do not own weapons. We’re not trusting or naïve, and understand perfectly well that people are unpredictable, irrational and easily blinded.

Even the ones who have permits.

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