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When May I Shoot a Student?
- nsxwolf 13y agoThis article was obviously full of snark, but if the professor is really looking for an answer to his question, he can read up on the relevant law in his state and take a concealed carry class from a licensed instructor, where that information will be covered in great detail.
- taybin 13y agoThis is full on satire.
- Beliavsky 13y agoMost professors will not carry guns, but knowing that some may be armed could deter massacres like the ones at Virgina Tech or Sandy Hook.
- nsxwolf 13y agoMass shootings are so rare we may not ever be able to gather convincing data one way or another, but I tend to agree. Shooters are dismissed as crazy and irrational, but they aren't. In every case, they plan for a successful shooting. They want to go out with a bang, not a whimper. They're going to prefer targets that are unlikely to offer resistance that will reduce or entirely eliminate their body count.
- shawabawa3 13y agoDo people seriously believe that? Do you really think that the sort of people who would shoot up a classroom will have second thoughts if they think someone else might have a gun?
- nsxwolf 13y agoYes, per my comment above. They will go places where they won't face interference with their plans - they will choose a restaurant with a "No Guns" sign rather than a police station. You assume there is no rationality behind the suicidal, but there is. Consider the Kamikaze.
- sentenza 13y agoI'd say that is wishful thinking. The number of college shooting perpetrators that expected to get away without being killed is most likely zero. Here in Germany there are very few guns. Nonetheless, one of the typical places to go on a rampage is the court house, where you have a 100% likelyhood of armed guards. Also: Didn't the Kamikaze try to crash into heavily armed ships?
- nsxwolf 13y agoI'm not sure what you're arguing. I never said mass shooters expect to get away without being killed. I said they want to be successful - kill as many as they can before they're either killed or shoot themselves when they hear the sirens. My Kamikaze example was merely demonstrating that suicidal people can be rational. In this case, their mission was to attack the battleships, not to attack an unarmed populace.
- MrZongle2 13y agoSimple answer: under the same conditions you may shoot anybody else. Too much practicality for the academic class, I fear.
- peatmoss 13y agoI'm fairly certain this was satire. Rather good satire at that.
- humanrebar 13y agoExactly. When you're a professor, your students are nearly always adults. Treat them the same way you would treat any other adult customer (or protege, perhaps).
- jw_ 13y agoIs this an attempt at humour or did you really miss the entire point of the article?
- hga 13y agoKinda hard to when you've exhausted your quota of 10 article a month. But from the opening paragraph (all I can see for more than a couple of seconds) it's clearly an anti-gun, anti-concealed carry attack, for which excusing its verbal brutality as "humor" doesn't work in the least. From someone who's likely grossly ignorant of the relevant details, including at least a couple of nearby states, Utah and Colorado, that allow concealed carry in public universities without any incidents of note. Heck, when Colorado flipped hard-core anti-gun in the legislature and executive last year, a law to eliminate that was the only gun-grabbing measure to fail.
- SilasX 13y agoThe entire point was: "Heh, I'm going to make light of this issue while not conveying any helpful insight for thinking about it, and if it's close enough to satire and takes the right position, I'll make it into the NY times." Seriously, op-eds like this remind me of what my selection of commentary looked like before the internet. How is it clever to joke about "gosh, the worst we get 'round these parts is cheating on scantrons, shuck-a-muck."
- carsongross 13y agoAn armed classroom is a polite classroom.
- leothekim 13y agoFTFA: "Some of my colleagues are concerned that you are encouraging firearms within a densely packed concentration of young people who are away from home for the first time, and are coincidentally the age associated with alcohol and drug experimentation, and the commission of felonies." Not only that, but the college years tend to be the age when a number of mental illnesses start to swing into high gear. Schizophrenia, depression, and bipolar disorder come to mind.
- hga 13y agoThe first point is rather diminished by the fact that the people actually (legally) carrying will be over 21 years of age. I'm not sure how to address your second point, e.g. is that an argument for denying the enumerated constitutional right to bear arms to those in that higher risk age zone? I'd prefer we counter-reform our mental health system; back in saner days, most of these shooters, like the Virginia Tech one, who was adjudicated by a judge, would have been controlled in one way or another so they weren't dangers. The introduction in the '50s of miraculously effective anti-psychotic drugs---something witnessed by my mother the nurse---allow solutions short of simple warehousing, but that wasn't enough for the powers that be, especially since there were more effective ways to buy votes.
- leothekim 13y agoThe first point really isn't diminished. How many people do you know did things under the legal age limit in college? As for the second point - "is that an argument for denying the enumerated constitutional right to bear arms to those in that higher risk age zone?" - well, you're stuffing straw into my comment. I was adding to the author's point that this is a particularly volatile age. Sure we need to address mental health issues, Newtown etc, but I think allowing guns on campus is fanning the flames. Why is this prioritized over mental health reform? Curious, if there is agreement on an age limit to legally carrying guns, why not raise that to, say, 25? Or, lower it to 16 which is the legal age to drive cars? Why coincide with the legal age of drinking, or the age of half of all college students in the country? Isn't an age limit an argument for arbitrarily denying the enumerated constitutional right to bear arms?
- MrMember 13y agoConcealed carry is already legal on several dozen college campuses in the US, some of them for more than a decade. There hasn't been a single instance of someone threatening to shoot or shooting someone else. It has been a non-issue. Not to mention the author doesn't even seem to know the circumstances in which someone can obtain a permit to carry. He says colleges are "densely packed concentrations of young people who are away from home for the first time, and are coincidentally the age associated with alcohol and drug experimentation, and the commission of felonies." Which is true. And none of those people can legally carry a firearm, as the minimum age to carry is 21. Carry permit holders commit violent crimes at a staggeringly low rate. If you disregard anecdotes (as someone will inevitably bring up Zimmerman, etc), you are safer in the company of a permit holder than a non-permit holder.