Student Against Handguns - Offers NO SOLUTION

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A moot issue
A moot issue
Ted Rogers : Issue date: 5/1/08

I usually don't debate on the topic of gun control. It's not that I don't have strong feelings on the issue, it's that people who are for unlimited gun rights don't care.

If you're looking for reasons to restrict access to guns, there are about 89,000 of them (the number of homicides from handguns from 1990-1997). Still, that doesn't convince the defenders of the Second Amendment that there is a problem.

To put it less tastefully, if someone is willing to take the chance of having his or her kid splatter his brains across the room because it's their constitutional right to own a gun, what chance does some pinko journalism major have of persuading them that guns should be regulated?

But I draw the line at bringing guns onto campus. There is no way I'd feel safer, and there is no way I'd be safer. For all the research I've done on the matter, I think I've found a good thing in being in a place where guns are not around. The statistics back me up.

For the sake of this argument, I'll be using handgun stats. This is because handguns are easily concealable, and thus would be the weapon of choice for people concerned enough about their "safety" to bring a gun on campus. I'm using stats from the Violence Policy Center, (VPC.org) so you can check them out at your leisure.

Since the argument about bringing guns on campus has always been about students using guns to defend themselves, I think you should take a look at the numbers on defense. For every time a handgun in America is used in a justifiable way that the courts call "self-defense," there are 1.3 unintentional deaths - there are also 4.6 intentional deaths, but the courts call them homicides.

So what's all this noise about guns being a safe self-defense tool? At the very least, there's a pretty big cost/benefit ratio.

The weirdest thing is that gun enthusiasts often say that the way to bring these violent crimes down is - you guessed it - more guns. The logic behind this is that criminals would think twice about robbing Granny if there was a bigger likelihood of her packing heat. Well, that logic is flawed.

Louisiana, a state where 46 percent of households have a gun, has a gun death rate of 19 out of 100,000 people. Massachusetts has a rate about a fifth of that. Only 13 percent of households here have guns.

Some argue that these statistics are meaningless, because the Bill of Rights clearly states that people have the right to bear arms.

Well, maybe. The Second Amendment is an oddly worded sentence that says states need armed militias to stay safe. That was at our county's birth, when we had no standing army. Today, the U.S. has an army with tanks, stealth fighters, tactical nuclear warheads and dolphins trained to navigate mined harbors. If those fail to stop an invasion of the U.S., a militia of firearm enthusiasts will not turn the tide.

But more to the point, the whole Bill of Rights is violated on a daily basis. When police search your dorm because of a suspicious smell, that's a violation of the Fourth Amendment. If you want to complain about your Second Amendment rights being violated because you can't bring a gun on campus, get in line with the hippies and Bush-haters.

Here's the thing. I think I know why some people still would want to bring guns to campus, even after knowing all of this.

I remember Virginia Tech too. I remember that rainy, awful day. I remember watching the news for hours without getting up. And I remember feeling angry. I felt like if there was a way I could have stopped that, I would have.

But guns on the campus would not have solved that. I don't think that many of us could bring ourselves to kill another person, no matter what the outcome. And if someone found the fortitude to raise a gun and shoot at the killer, what would happen if they miss? What if another innocent person was hit and had to die because of some misguided notion of safety?

Most people, thankfully, will not need to deal with something as horrible as that. But we all need to deal with life. Sometimes people get heated, get crazy. It's part of being a human. Can anyone really say that guns will make us safer in those situations?

The tragedy at Virginia Tech makes any person ask questions. What could have been done to avoid this? Should people have been more vigilant?

Am I safe?

Having guns on campus is not the answer to any of these. Keep things the way they are.

Ted Rogers is a Collegian columnist. He can be reached at [email protected]
Click to expand...

What a joke, I can't wait for him to leave the safety and false security of his dorm and face the real world.
 
Once a lie is uttered, it takes on a life of its own. A lot of bogus data and bad information is floating around out there. Some of it is intentional disinformation, such as that pushed by Josh Sugarmann. Some of it is just urban legend, and some is the result of ignorance or naivete.

There is a lot of bad bad information repeated here. But when the kid gets his information from VPC, what can we expect?

We could encourage him to investigate alternative resources, but why bother, really? His mind is made up and he'll find the justification for his viewpoints among likeminded and similarly misinformed individuals.

I think that those of us on the other side of the debate, for the most part, have the intellectual wherewithal to consider all the facts, and to separate fact from fiction.

If anyone wants to debate this college weasel .... feel free. I'm feeling a bit to old for sophomoric polemics.
 
For all the research I've done on the matter, I think I've found a good thing in being in a place where guns are not around.
Click to expand...

One small problem with this theory: "place where guns are not around" != "place where guns are not allowed". While he might arguably be safer in the first place (though I don't believe it personally), but no way in the second (where only the bad guys have guns).

For every time a handgun in America is used in a justifiable way that the courts call "self-defense," there are 1.3 unintentional deaths - there are also 4.6 intentional deaths, but the courts call them homicides.
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Another tool who believes that it only counts as self defense if there's a dead body to show for it. Has he asked how effective the U Mass police are? Don't recall the last time that they managed to show a dead perp for their efforts.

Let me guess ... journalism major? Or maybe poly sci. [rolleyes]

Ken
 
For all the research I've done on the matter, I think I've found a good thing in being in a place where guns are not around.
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Yes, all that research from ONE SOURCE (vpc.org) must be correct. Don't bother searching elsewhere since this research fits your hypothesis.

Just a tip for anyone who might be interested in writing nonfiction - it should take you longer to research the article than to write it. I'm going to guess this was about five of minutes research and ten minutes of writing.
 
Hope and Justice said:
Just a tip for anyone who might be interested in writing nonfiction - it should take you longer to research the article than to write it. I'm going to guess this was about five of minutes research and ten minutes of writing.
Click to expand...

Who told you journalists were interested in writing non fiction?

Gary
 
Bottom line once and for all:

I don't have the right to tell you that you have to buy and carry a gun.

You don't have the right to tell me that I can not.
 
No one is trying to force this guy to learn to shoot. I wonder why he thinks we care about his ill informed opinion ?

Unless of course he thinks all his readers look to him for advice and example.


( that was my "polite" voice. )

And he is a goddamn fool who is either stupid or lazy in his writing , research and understanding of the Constitution. I was particularly impressed with the argument that since the BOR is already frayed and mangled we should just give up.
 
fubar said:
I was particularly impressed with the argument that since the BOR is already frayed and mangled we should just give up.
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Yeah, his argument that since hippies and Bush haters fight for the BOR, therefore anybody who does is a hippy and Bush hater was just brilliant. The further fact that the accusation of being leftist was meant to terrify gun owners was a poorly directed ad hominem.
 
KMaurer said:
Let me guess ... journalism major? Or maybe poly sci. [rolleyes]

Ken
Click to expand...

Obviously he's not a math major...[rolleyes]

Louisiana, a state where 46 percent of households have a gun, has a gun death rate of 19 out of 100,000 people. Massachusetts has a rate about a fifth of that. Only 13 percent of households here have guns.
Click to expand...

It's those tricky fractions...[rolleyes]
 
Response to Pinko Journalist

To put it less tastefully, if someone is willing to take the chance of having his or her kid splatter his brains across the room because it's their constitutional right to own a gun, what chance does some pinko journalism major have of persuading them that guns should be regulated?
Click to expand...

There is no chance our children will gain access to our firearms because we understand the awesome responsibility as a firearm owner: Our families security is paramount above all other responsibilities. I will always carry a firearm at my side while I still have air in my lungs and the right to keep and bear arms. Apparently, you would rather be shot on campus, stabbed in a dorm, watch your friends be shot or stabbed, than stand up for your rights as a United States Citizen: You are a pathetic, weak minded, invertebrate that creeps and slides along and does not do much but rely on others who have balls to do what is necessary to keep their family and country safe.


But I draw the line at bringing guns onto campus. There is no way I'd feel safer, and there is no way I'd be safer. For all the research I've done on the matter, I think I've found a good thing in being in a place where guns are not around. The statistics back me up.
Click to expand...

Yes, and what stats are those? Must not have been too helpful to bolster your argument here. [thinking]


For the sake of this argument, I'll be using handgun stats. This is because handguns are easily concealable, and thus would be the weapon of choice for people concerned enough about their "safety" to bring a gun on campus. I'm using stats from the Violence Policy Center, (VPC.org) so you can check them out at your leisure.
Click to expand...

How about the Hi-Point 995 Carbine, Savage 67H pump-action shotgun, or possibly a Stevens 311D double barreled sawed-off shotgun? But of course, those were not that easily concealable, right? If you can guess where those showed up, then you truly know your gun facts. Here is a hint: A flaming liberal, fat lard tub of s*it created a movie after the incident.


Louisiana, a state where 46 percent of households have a gun, has a gun death rate of 19 out of 100,000 people. Massachusetts has a rate about a fifth of that. Only 13 percent of households here have guns.
Click to expand...

Obviously, you did not get into UMass on your Math SAT scores or your data is wrong. [rolleyes]


Well, maybe. The Second Amendment is an oddly worded sentence that says states need armed militias to stay safe. That was at our county's birth, when we had no standing army. Today, the U.S. has an army with tanks, stealth fighters, tactical nuclear warheads and dolphins trained to navigate mined harbors. If those fail to stop an invasion of the U.S., a militia of firearm enthusiasts will not turn the tide.
Click to expand...

Odd to you, but to hundreds of thousands of law abiding Americans who would sacrifice their lives for the safety of their family, this is freedom in the most basic and raw form: Do not ever forget, that you have your First Amendment to spew this crap because there is a Second Amendment that guarantees the equality of every law abiding citizen who chooses the right to keep and bear arms.
 
Perhaps he wouldn't feel quite so safe if he were like the vast majority of college students in Mass who go to schools where the campus police are NOT armed?

Maybe he wouldn't feel so safe if he knew that some of the student bus drivers at Umass have to have an armed police guard ride their routes with them on weekend nights? I know, because my fiance used to drive those routes, and often times there weren't enough local cops to take those routes, so I rode with her. I encouraged her pretty hard to leave that job because of those dangereous night routes.

He likes to use the statistic of Mass homes having fewer guns, so that must be why gun violence is lower? What? Vermont homes are far more frequently armed than not, and where is the gun violence there?

I have nothing bad to say about the Umass Amherst campus police, I've known a few, and they do work hard and are well trained, but that is the exception to the rule here in this state. Too many campuses have unarmed campus police, who's job in the event of a rampage is to run faster than the students and call 911 when they are safely away. Students can't even have pepperspray, for crying out loud!

One day, if we have a daughter, we have already decided she will not be going to college in this state, not unless things change around here.

My fiance just told me that the article we are talking about was written in response to something another student wrote supporting the right of students having guns on campus. The student who wrote that article (I've met him a few times) is considered a very liberal minded person.
 
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hillman said:
.....
My fiance just told me that the article we are talking about was written in response to something another student wrote supporting the right of students having guns on campus. The student who wrote that article (I've met him a few times) is considered a very liberal minded person.
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A shot at common sense
Devon Courtney
Issue date: 5/1/08
I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Why the heck is there anyone writing in favor of carrying a gun on campus? More importantly, why is Devon Courtney writing it?"
Click to expand...
 
From the article in question:

But I draw the line at bringing guns onto campus. There is no way I'd feel safer, and there is no way I'd be safer. For all the research I've done on the matter, I think I've found a good thing in being in a place where guns are not around. The statistics back me up.

For the sake of this argument, I'll be using handgun stats. This is because handguns are easily concealable, and thus would be the weapon of choice for people concerned enough about their "safety" to bring a gun on campus. I'm using stats from the Violence Policy Center, (VPC.org) so you can check them out at your leisure.

Since the argument about bringing guns on campus has always been about students using guns to defend themselves, I think you should take a look at the numbers on defense. For every time a handgun in America is used in a justifiable way that the courts call "self-defense," there are 1.3 unintentional deaths - there are also 4.6 intentional deaths, but the courts call them homicides.

So what's all this noise about guns being a safe self-defense tool? At the very least, there's a pretty big cost/benefit ratio.

The weirdest thing is that gun enthusiasts often say that the way to bring these violent crimes down is - you guessed it - more guns. The logic behind this is that criminals would think twice about robbing Granny if there was a bigger likelihood of her packing heat. Well, that logic is flawed.

Louisiana, a state where 46 percent of households have a gun, has a gun death rate of 19 out of 100,000 people. Massachusetts has a rate about a fifth of that. Only 13 percent of households here have guns.
Click to expand...

In almost all anti-gun arguments, but particularly in those that the author attempts to present as disciplined or dispassionate, as this young gentleman does, there is something that nearly always jumps right out at you. It's the inappropriate use of numbers to argue what is purely an issue of clear, logical thinking.

We see it time and again: Some callow but "promising" young comer at one of our colleges or universities will attempt to shine some light on the thorny issue of gun violence by blundering into the feral world of logical debate equipped with nothing more than a handful of "statistics" gathered during "research". In a pitiable effort to inject what s/he must see as scholarship into the article, the writer will mechanically arrange a bunch of numbers that prove nothing at all and then sit back proudly as though the crazy notions of the gun enthusiasts have met their match in "cold, hard statistics".

Do these poor things have any idea of how inept their use of numbers makes them appear to any rational person? Far from being an ordered and scholarly approach to the issue, this author's use of statistics to support his anti-gun argument's thesis only suggests that the author has no confidence in his ability to enter into rational discussion, and so seeks refuge in a squall of numbers. This he hopes will overwhelm the simpletons on the other side and make them cower before their opponent's better "researched" presentation - as though one needs to research how to think clearly about issues that involve nothing more than common sense.

It's an intimidation tactic, but a very poor one, something that will only work with people who doubt their own rationality. To use it, Mr. Rogers is either very dumb or very desperate, for the issue at hand is so basic, so fundamental, as to be able to be presented in a few lines of elementary English, something that it is difficult to obscure with any amount of statistical garbage. Most people of good will, and who are seeking the truth, will have no trouble seeing through Mr. Rogers obfuscations.

The question is very simple, Mr. Rogers:

Is it or is it not true that an individual who possesses a lethal weapon, and who is competent in its use, is better equipped to resist a violent attack than someone who does possess such a weapon?

That is it. The entire issue, in a nutshell. Numbers have nothing to do with it. Logic has everything to do with it. In answering "not true" to the above question, one is crossing the line into sheer fantasy, not that there is any shortage of people willing to do just that - which they do most often by arguing incompetence in one form or another, almost invariably "supported" by - you guessed it - statistics.

They'll claim that a gun is "24 times more likely to hurt its owner than an attacker" or some other such nonsense. What most of these statistically-supported(?) assertions have in common is that they wrongly suggest a connection between one's own competency/incompetency, responsibility/irresponsibility, and that of other people. That is to say, they appear to think that someone considering becoming armed is likely to be thrown into doubt about how s/he will handle/carry/store the gun because of how others have (according to the "studies" cited) have irresponsibly or incompetently handled/carried/stored their guns. It's as though they wish people to believe that irresponsible or incompetent behavior is somehow contagious.

If I flip a coin one hundred times, and each time it comes up "heads", what are the odds that it will come up heads on the one hundred first flip? One in two, the same as for the first flip. Events that have taken place in the past, whether concerning coin flips or the actions of people other than myself in situations that I had nothing to do with and no control over, should have, and indeed do have, no bearing on my actions, or the actions of any individual who must decide upon a responsible and effective course of action to preserve his own safety and that of other innocents.

Mr. Rogers, you may produce a "statistic" that indicates that campuses where students are permitted to be legally armed are 10 times as likely to have violent incidents as campuses where carry is not legal, but it would be no more relevant to the issue at hand than a statistic showing that people who are left-handed or brown-eyed commit 4 times as many firearm homicides as those who aren't. Such "facts" have nothing to do with the decision-making process of rational, competent and responsible individuals responding to their own needs at any given time, and they should not be permitted to affect such individuals' rights to take precautionary measures for their own safety - measures that do not affect anyone but those individuals themselves, which responsible concealed carry surely does not.

To allow statistics to dictate what I may or may not do in my own defense is to make me share in the consequences of other people's poor judgement or criminality. In the world according to Mr. Rogers, these people - the people whose bad behavior has created the statistics in question - would be permitted to control me. By virtually anybody's standards, I think, this is unfair. The carrying of a concealed weapon for my own protection is, once again, something that concerns nobody but myself. To use statistics as an argument against allowing me to take measures for my own defense is incredibly presumptious and arrogant.

Numbers, no matter where they come from, are no substitute for clear thinking. There is too much at stake in our society today to be so mistaken.
 
He should look at the crime levels in the communities surrounding the colleges. Take Blacksburg, VA for example. Most people in the community actually do have a gun. The crime rate in Blacksburg (excluding the Va. Tech. community and, in particular, the football players) is extremely low. Why? The criminals know people are armed and not easy targets.

I am not proferring that they should hand out guns with student IDs, but you should have the same rights on a state supported college campus as you would anywhere else in the state.
 
I love BS stats...

"did you guys know that 100% of gun owners have had a family member or friend die?" Guns have even been found in households infested with termites!!! Termites men, Termites. Shit you've put this whole entire forum at risk. You should all be ashamed of yourselves [wink]
 
Ummm, why did he pick Louisiana of all places, only Louisiana, and why did he choose only to quote the VPC. He's an ass clown.

Also, how does he explain places like DC, Chicago, and Boston. I guess he doesn't.
 
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WayneWong said:
Ummm, why did he pick Louisiana of all places, only Louisiana, and why did he choose only to quote the VPC. He's an ass clown.

Also, how does he explain places like DC, Chicago, and Boston. I guess he doesn't.
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Lack of research[grin]
 
BuggsBunny said:
Is it or is it not true that an individual who possesses a lethal weapon, and who is competent in its use, is better equipped to resist a violent attack than someone who does possess such a weapon?
Click to expand...

And therin lies the rub. Too often people who display blatant ignorance of the nomenclature and proper use of firearms cite the injury of innocents nearby as a colossal problem. While I am by no means downplaying this risk, it demonstrates a narrow mind by the author as he envisions such an action from his perspective with his lack of formal training, giving no thought to those who train and are competent in its use. He imagines himself as a defender, and realizes that in his panic and fear he would be closing his eyes and pulling the trigger, uncertain of where that shot will land.

It has been my personal experience that taking people like this to the range after a thorough lesson in safety, nomenclature, and marksmanship serves to enlighten them in several areas. First, the firearm is demystified and they see it for what it is: a mechanically simple tool. Second, they see that it in their untrained state it is difficult to consistently and accurately hit what they are aiming for. The result of this is twofold; they understand that the firearm is not the killing machine that requires no skill as it is portrayed in Hollywood, and they gain a respect for the skill and training that goes into operating it with skill and efficiency, especially under stress.
 
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I sent the guy a very polite email the other day pointing out some areas where he may be not looking at the whole picture. Still hasn't responded.
 

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