Student Group Pushes for Concealed Guns on Campus
SCCC Announces Defense Education Week!Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, the leading advocate for self-defense rights on college campuses, announced Defense Education Week on Monday, the latest in a series of events designed to draw attention to their goal.
The event is intended to educate participants about weapons and self-defense, and includes Empty Holster Protests, free educational courses at shooting ranges, guest speakers, petition drives, legislative lobbying and a new website called Armed or Not? which invites visitors to observe and be quizzed on concealed carry. The group expects participation from college groups across the nation
Our goal has always been to educate the public about who we are and what we’re about, said David Burnett, a spokesman for the group. There are gross misconceptions about what we advocate, and what self-defense on campus is for. People think we want to hand out guns to 18-year-olds, or sacrifice student safety, and that’s not at all the case. We don’t want to change who can carry, we want to change where.
One of the event’s planners, Ken Stanton, is a graduate student at Virginia Tech who lost a friend in the Virginia Tech shooting and who now advocates letting citizens carry guns on campus. It’s about more than just carrying a gun, he said. It’s about protecting your life. No school should ever have to be remembered for what Virginia Tech is.
The group, which has over 41,000 supporters online and affiliated campus groups in nearly every state, has successfully prompted legislation to be considered in more than 20 states in the past two years. Colleges in Arizona, South Carolina and Michigan have loosened restrictions regarding weapons on campus as a result, and some states have already pre-filed similar bills for 2010.
The reality is that this could make campuses a lot safer, said Burnett. The only people we want carrying weapons are the ones who have gone through the rigorous procedures required by state law to get a permit. If you’re a criminal looking for an easy victim, are you really going to pick a spot where you know citizens are empowered to fight back?
Campuses aren’t immune from crime, and if a student faces that kind of situation, we want them to have a fighting chance.
Student Group Pushes for Concealed Guns on Campus
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Great Idea
I don't go to parties. I don't go to bars. I don't live on campus.
I do, however, have my concealed carry permit.
Due to my state's asinine laws I am not allowed to carry on campus. I spend an hour sitting in a busy common area that anyone can get into. The townsfolk often come here even if they're not students .
If someone came in and started to shoot at a crowd of people, I would be left defenseless.
The campus police probably wouldn't be close by, and even if they were they would still be slow to arrive seeing as how those lazy guys spend their "patrols" riding Segway scooters and eating junk food .
The small town where the university is located doesn't have many police, and they tend to stay off campus because of the campus police, so they would be slow to arrive.
I, as well as all the other students, would be completely defenseless.
My pistols holds 12 rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber. I carry high-power hollowpoint ammunition.
It wouldn't take me much time to use my weapon to stop the attacker. He might end up hitting no one, or several people, depending on how fast he shoots. That's how this scenario might play out if I were allowed to carry.
Instead, I'd be completely defenseless. Hopefully I wouldn't get shot in the back of the head while I ran away.
My gun being on my person doesn't pose anymore of a threat to those around me than the campus police's guns do. In fact, the whole argument about guns getting stolen from students is ridiculous. Our police, as stated above, roll around on Segways. It wouldn't take much to knock one over and get that gun. At that point the campus police are as defenseless as the students who don't have guns.
- mhphoto
November 9, 2009 7:07PM
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If You Save a Life...
You can still carry into "Gun Free Zones," if the security is as lacking as you say it is. If you did have to use your weapon to save a life, you could be exonerated when the courts (and your extensive legal fees) reveal that the law is bad and you did the right thing despite the rules in place...
However, the odds of a school shooting happening while you are there are low since the odds of a campus shooting are rare to begin with. It's the media who makes it into a big deal; people are shot all the time and people defend themselves all the time, but rarely do the positive stories hit the headlines . That being said, it's more likely for our authoritarian rulers to put in measures (such as the existing ones) that would have you criminalized for having a means of defending yourself.
The perception of the anti-gun folks, including your average non-carrying citizen, is that you're carrying a gun and not a cop so you are most likely up to no good. That paradigm needs to be changed since that way of thinking is entirely false.
I don't just carry for my own defense. I carry for those who won't, because there isn't a cop on every street corner and I can't rely on the odds that there will be when I am witnessing a forcible felony.
- m46607
November 9, 2009 8:22PM
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What we need:
I've considered breaking the law in favor of protection, but I decided that, as you said, it's statistically safe on campuses. We have had some violent crime , but it was the first time in years that anything of the kind had happened.
The media image of law -abiding citizens does need to change . I know a lot of concealed carriers and none of them fancy themselves a cowboy.
We need more sheepdogs in society . Cops can't be everywhere at once.
- mhphoto
November 9, 2009 10:05PM
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Problem For You Is
...you must frequent a "Gun Free Zone." As others have called them, "Free Fire Zones." They create soft targets for bad guys. As you continue to own a Right to Life, you should also be allowed to carry some form of self defense weapon.
I would check local and State laws and regulations . You may at least be able to keep an electric weapon or chemical spray while at campus. It is still better than nothing.
- m46607
November 9, 2009 11:48PM
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Take our society back
Absolutely arm everyone willing to carry, we can put society back on track
- jjtrish
November 9, 2009 7:48PM
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Police Tasers Dont't Require a Permit
The students at the University of Texas as well as other colleges have started carring th C-2 version of the Police Taser wherever they go on and off campus. This unit is extremely easy to conceal and does not require a permit anywhere in the United States. The company is Self Defense Technology and they are located in Texas. Their main web site is www.self-defense-pepper-spray.com . They also sell the strongest Pepper Spray in the United States, called Wildfire.
- johns
November 10, 2009 6:07AM
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Disagree
In order for tasers, stun guns , and pepper spray to be used effectively you have to be close to the threat. If I'm halfway between the gunman and the door, I'm not gonna run up to him and start spraying him with pepper spray, and it puts me in danger to have to run to the door with my back to him.
A pistol doesn't put me at that disadvantage. End the threat, find safety.
- mhphoto
November 10, 2009 8:52PM
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Clean up the so-called "gun-free" zones
Consider this. Tens or hundreds of thousands of returning veterans from the Iraq and Afghan Wars and other parts of the Global War on Terror who were entrusted with far more firepower than they would have on campus, or anywhere else for that matter. Too bad some of them were not at Virginia Tech during that inexcusable massacre made possible by the draconian gun control laws imposed on VT students , faculty and staff. Presently 45+ states have concealed or open carry laws of some sort except in a bewildering checkerboard of so-called "gun-free zones" such as military bases, college campuses, shopping malls, movie theaters, elder and child care facilities, and in offices and places of employment where these mass shootings are more likely to occur because of the lack of armed response from law abiding citizens. We need to clean up the “gun-free zones” and finally restore the Constitutional right to keep and bear arms in all areas of this country. Gun control is a complete failure. Lawfully armed citizens are the ultimate deterrent to crime ; that according to the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics for twenty consecutive years.
- OIFtoUSC
November 13, 2009 4:07PM
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