When May I Shoot a Student?

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/28/opinion/when-may-i-shoot-a-student.html

by leothekim • 12 years ago

44 40 12 years ago

nsxwolf5• 12 years ago

This 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.

taybin2• 12 years ago

This is full on satire.

SilasX3• 12 years ago

Indeed. Poorly done, uninsightful satire.

Beliavsky2• 12 years ago

Most professors will not carry guns, but knowing that some may be armed could deter massacres like the ones at Virgina Tech or Sandy Hook.

nsxwolf5• 12 years ago

Mass 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• 12 years ago

Do 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?

nsxwolf5• 12 years ago

Yes, 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.

cincinnatus2• 12 years ago

People who are pro ccw have a very cartoonish understanding of the world.

TallGuyShort• 12 years ago

It's less silly than thinking the sort of people who would shoot up a classroom will have second thoughts if there is a school policy against having weapons, and less silly than believing the police will always arrive at a mass shooting in time to save a lot of lives.

Beliavsky2• 12 years ago

I think that mass shooters want to kill a lot of people before they die, so the prospect of being stopped before they can do so could be a deterrent.

hga8• 12 years ago

As noted elsewhere, these events are so rare and aberrant that it is difficult to impossible to come to firm conclusions.

BUT, we do know these suggestive things:

Of the recent, going back quite a ways shootings (I think back to 1989, but maybe post-1966), only the Arizona Congresswoman's was not in a "Gun Free"---except for the active shooter---location. (And if the people right there hadn't stopped the shooter while he was doing a magazine change an armed citizen who showed up while they were still wrestling with him would very likely have.)

The Aurora, CO movie theater shooter went significantly out of his way to go to a theater that was so hoplophobic that they required the off-duty police hired as guards to go unarmed (!). All the other local options had no such policies.

Mz• 12 years ago

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?

Bullies are almost always cowards. So it seems plausible to me.

On the other hand, I think I understand where this piece of satire is coming from. I was a military wife and full-time mom and homemaker for a long time. My dad was career military and grew up on a farm. I grew up with shotguns hanging on the wall of my parent's bedroom. I have been around gun culture but I insisted my husband get rid of the handgun he had for a time because I am clear that if you are not prepared to kill someone when you pull a gun, you best not pull it because you are likely just arming your opponent and escalating the problems.

Escalating the arms race rarely leads to promoting the peace. It is unfortunate that satirical pieces of this sort so rarely follow up with commentary on how on promotes the peace after they lambast the idea of arming people to promote peace. But it seems to me that many people who recognize that more guns is not the solution do not know what would be an effective solution, so presumably they simply cannot offer anything more than criticism of the proposed solution. If you do not have an alternative solution to bring to the table, it usually isn't very helpful to shoot down (so to speak) the solution being proposed. But it happens a lot.

GVIrish• 12 years ago

There was a mall shooting in Portland where the shooter when confronted by an armed citizen, disengaged, then shot himself.

http://www.kgw.com/news/Clackamas-man-armed-confronts-mall-s...

It seems that these shooters seek out soft targets where they are unlikely to encounter armed resistance. Not saying that we should put an armory in every school, just that these shooters aren't looking to get in a shoot out. If they were they'd go try to shoot up a police station.

mbrameld• 12 years ago

To play devil's advocate, do people really believe that a person who has made up their mind to go on a shooting spree at their school will change their mind when they realize it is illegal to bring a gun on campus?

JoeAltmaier• 12 years ago

The overwhelming number of shootings occur in gun-free zones. Its easy to believe; its true.

Tombone5• 12 years ago

Indeed: school massacres are driven by individuals acting in a very danger adverse manner.

peatmoss2• 12 years ago

"Holy crap, it's a good guy with a gun! Run away!"

MrZongle2• 12 years ago

Simple answer: under the same conditions you may shoot anybody else.

Too much practicality for the academic class, I fear.

peatmoss2• 12 years ago

I'm fairly certain this was satire. Rather good satire at that.

humanrebar• 12 years ago

Exactly. 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_• 12 years ago

Is this an attempt at humour or did you really miss the entire point of the article?

hga8• 12 years ago

Kinda 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.

SilasX3• 12 years ago

The 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• 12 years ago

An armed classroom is a polite classroom.

leothekim2• 12 years ago

FTFA: "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.

hga8• 12 years ago

The 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.

leothekim2• 12 years ago

The 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• 12 years ago

Concealed 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.

When May I Shoot a Student?

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