The latest evidence for the end of civilization as we know it comes from the Oklahoma Legislature, or more specifically, Rep. Jason Murphey, a Republican from Guthrie.
Murphey's bright idea: arming college students. (Doh! Why didn't we think of this?)
The solution to college murder sprees, recently at Northern Illinois and earlier at Virginia Tech, is students who can shoot back. Of course. Rep. Murphey says that, under his legislation, licensed students could take concealed weapons into the classroom.
Only a couple of problems here. Okay, three or four problems, tops.
First, as former state trooper and current Rep. Paul Roan told a reporter, this could hinder law enforcement.
"You wouldn't know who the players are," Roan said. You think?
Second, what about students who lose their temper at a professor, a classmate, or a (former) boyfriend or girlfriend?
Oh, that's right, they can shoot back! We can see it now: Bearded OU and OSU profs, accenting their tweedy threads with underarm holsters and snub-nosed pistols.
Professors with pistols—that's got a nice ring to it, don't you think?
Third, there's an age problem here. Murphey's bill says that gun-toting undergrads would have to be licensed (okay, this is a good idea) and 21 or over (another good idea).
So if our crazed campus shooter wants to shoot up a classroom, he (and it usually is a he) can locate a freshman or sophomore course, where most students are likely to be under 21 and thus (legislatively) unable to shoot back.
Following the logic of more guns making campus safer, we'd have to advise freshmen and sophomores to arm themselves as well, illegally if need be. After all, they've gotta shoot back, right?
Fourth, who will pick up the costs for the hospitalization and funerals for the faculty, staff, and student bystanders who get caught in the crossfire? If every frat boy and coed is packing heat and the crazed gunman appears, it's shoot first, ask questions later, isn't it?
Come to think of it, if Rep. Murphey's bill becomes law, expect student grades to skyrocket.
Don't care for that "gentleman's C" on your essay exam? No problem—you can settle the score with a well-placed body shot.
6 comments:
Funny.
Seriously, though, I remember the same sorts of--shoot (pun intended), almost the exact same--arguments being tossed about before Oklahoma's concealed-carry law went into effect. Opponents prophesied carnage in the streets.
Well, it's been a few years now, and any carnage in the streets has been conspicuous by its lack of association with concealed-carry permit holders.
Even in making your case, you end up acknowledging that "crazed campus shooters" seem to have enough on the ball to pick targets they know likely won't shoot back.
One thing's for sure: the current no-guns-on-campus thing seems to be so not working very well.
It's funny: I've been around guns and people with guns for just about all my life (as have an awful lot of Oklahomans) and I feel very comfortable around armed people. I've never had a problem with them. I wonder what on earth could have happened to you to make you so uncomfortable around armed people.
Now, I've just got to stand with Dan on this one: with everyone in the classroom carrying, how could much of anything go wrong?
I mean, at least 99.99% of Oklahomans are righteously sane. They all just need to be ever-vigilant for that 1 out of 10,000. Praise the Lord, pass the ammo, and let Him sort it out.
Here's a reason to relax about the gun situation: most of those 1 in 10,000 crazies have probably been swept up and jailed already:
"More than one in every 100 American adults is in jail or prison — making the United States the world's incarceration leader, according to a new report tracking the surge in U.S. inmate population."
FoxNews
(So there are two felicitous surges going at once - O happy day!)
With this huge headstart and with everyone armed, it's a cinch that we would experience ever-decreasing levels of gun deaths.
Whats up with the bill going to the senate in Ok in which only military with ccw can carry in colleges. what do you have to have combat experience? Typical Ok thinking. Seems like descrimination
Ok, to start off i would like to say WOW, I simply can not believe the ignorance that continues to invade the minds of Americans everywhere.
The audacity that it takes to say that giving students the right to defend themselves would result in carnage is complete stupidity. There are already hundreds of people with their CCW in Oklahoma and I don't ever remember hearing reports of peopl shooting just because they got angry, and implying such simply inferes the complete lack of common sense on the parts of everyone involved.
Second the people that usually involve them selves enough to get a CCW are not going to jeopordize loosing it simply because they feel irritation towards someone else, this along with every other point that was made implys that members of our society are no better than animals that tear each other to shreds simply because they invaded their terrirory, granted some people are but those are few and far between, the only reason we think otherwise is because that is all the liberal media chooses to reort on. We do not hear of the dozens of instances that CCW holders have stopped shootings.
And my last point is that six states already allow college students to conceal carry and they are in the bottom half of the percentages for crime rates, so please get your facts together before blatantly displaying your ignorance for something that you clearly do not understand.
John,I disagree with AT, too,but we have become accustomed, I think, to expressing our mutual disagreements amicably.
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