wild west campus.....

[Guest guest]

can you imagine...it would certainly make professors " nervous " to hand out bad

grades...

 

Students with guns could stop massacres, says lobby group

By Anna Hipsley

 

Posted Wed Feb 20, 2008 9:11am AEDT

Updated Wed Feb 20, 2008 9:35am AEDT

 

A gunman killed five people at Northern Illinois University last week. (BBC

World)

The murder of five people at an Illinois university last week was America's

sixth shooting massacre in a fortnight. But for some Americans, instead of

strengthening the arguments for gun control, it has led to a new push to

lift bans on guns on campus. An internet-based lobby group wants staff and

students to be able to arm themselves against mass killers - and membership

is growing by the day.

On April 16, 2007, Cho Seung-Hui killed 32 people in what would come to be

known as the Virginia Tech massacre. The tragedy led US President George W

Bush to sign off on the first major federal gun control measure in more than

13 years.

 

But it also led to the creation of Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, a

group which supports the right of gun licence holders to carry concealed

handguns on college grounds. Scott Lewis is the national media co-ordinator

for the group. " What this is really about is evening the odds, " he told

PM.

 

" What we're saying is, let these trained, licensed individuals, who are

already carrying throughout their day-to-day lives without incident, let 'em

carry on these college campuses and take that advantage away from those

dangerous individuals. " The group now has almost 15,000 members across 50

states and has added 2,500 more since last week's shooting in Illinois.

 

" What we're talking about is allowing the same individuals who are already

trained and licensed to carry to carry in grocery stores, shopping malls,

office buildings, movie theatres, churches, banks, etc. What we're saying is

let 'em carry on campus, because there's no reason to assume that they're

gonna get drunk, disgruntled or distraught on campus and shoot somebody

there, " he said.

 

Mr Lewis says he does not think having more guns on campus will make it more

likely for a shooting to occur. " In fact, there are currently 40 states in

the US that are what we refer to as 'right to carry' states, " he said.

" In

those states, there has been no escalation in gun violence, gun accidents,

so, I think it's unfair to assume that this is gonna lead to more violence. "

 

Students for Concealed Carry on Campus claim they are an independent,

grassroots organisation.

 

But Peter Hamm, communication director for the Brady Campaign to Stop Gun

Violence, is concerned that the group is the latest tool of the powerful gun

lobby. " We know very clearly that they were organised and they are funded by

the gun industry, by the companies that are selling the guns, " he said.

" This is not some spontaneous, grassroots organisation. " There are more

members than there were before Virginia Tech because the gun industry is

spending more money to enlist more young people to help them spread the

word, that if only we had more guns in America, we'd have less of a gun

violence problem. "

 

Mr Lewis's argument is that if students are allowed to carry guns, they

could, in theory, stop a massacre happen, because they'd be able to take out

the gunman.

 

But Mr Hamm does not agree.

 

" I'd say that we all want James Bond or John Wayne to step forward when

a

bad guy shows up, but the real world doesn't operate that way, " he said.

" In

the real world, when a second person draws a weapon in a crowded classroom

full of people, it ends up with more people being shot, not fewer people

being shot. "

 

The only US state that currently lets students carry guns on campus is Utah.

But a university in Colorado and another in Virginia recently decided to

follow suit.

 

Legislation is also pending in several other states to overturn the ban on

concealed weapons on campus.

 

 

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance.

Confucius