The debate over guns on college campuses reignited this week with controversial comments by actor Vince Vaughn, Tuesday’s National Gun Violence Awareness Day and Texas moving forward to allow concealed carry on campus.
Anecdotally, it’s easy to think of how concealed handguns could help in dangerous situations. Would-be mass-shootings cut short by a licensed carrier. An otherwise defenseless female able to scare away a rapist after pulling out her revolver. Fewer violent confrontations because perpetrators worry about their victims having a gun.
On the flip side, it’s easy to think of how concealed carry might go wrong on campus. A drunk fraternity brother injures or kills someone while trying to show off his shooting skills. An angry student uses a pistol to confront a professor over a grading injustice. Weapons stolen from a dorm room left unlocked.
Texas is now the eighth state to allow concealed weapons on public college campuses, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, joining Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Mississippi, Oregon, Utah and Wisconsin. Some of those states still ban weapons in certain areas, such as dorm rooms or stadiums. Nineteen states ban carrying a concealed weapon on campus, while 23 states leave that decision to the colleges.
The National Rifle Association believes the benefits of guns on campus clearly outweigh the costs. “These doom and gloom scenarios have not come to fruition,” Jennifer Baker, the Director of Public Affairs for the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action, told the Washington Examiner. “Threats to your personal safety don’t end once you step on campus.” She says if there were examples of concealed carry gone wrong on campus, the opposition would use them as ammunition.
The only example I found of concealed carry gone wrong on campus was an Idaho professor who shot himself in the foot. Baker pointed out that concealed carry holders are more law-abiding than the general public.
There are plenty of examples where concealed carry would have helped a victim. Amanda Collins was a student at the University of Nevada-Reno in 2007 when she was raped at gunpoint in a supposedly “gun-free” zone. Collins had a concealed carry permit but left her gun at home to avoid violating the gun-free zone law. “All I wanted was a chance to effectively defend myself,” Collins wrote in a March 2015 MSNBC column. “The choice to participate in one’s own defense should be left to the individual. That choice should not be mandated by the government.”
Then again, it’s possible that an unfortunate incident could set the gun rights movement back. One person killed by an irresponsible concealed carry holder could turn the tide of public opinion against gun rights for years.
“Having guns on campus has the potential for bad — it also has the potential for great good,” John Malcolm, a senior legal fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, told the Examiner. “For Texas to make this judgement, it’s certainly a bit of a gamble,” Malcolm said about the Texas concealed carry on campus law.
One thing is clear: The 2007 tragedy at Virginia Tech is going to be part of the guns on campus debate for a long time. Baker calls that shooting, in which 32 students were killed by a gunman, the impetus for concealed carry on campus. Malcolm also reflected on that shooting in his comments.
“If there had been somebody to shoot and kill Seung-Hui Cho, there might be more Virginia Tech students alive today,” Malcolm said. “Bad things happen on college campuses in terms of mass shooting events. I would hope that people who are concealed carry permit holders would be responsible gun owners and that if such an event happened in Texas that somebody would be around to take out the shooter before mass mayhem ensues.”
Although Vince Vaughn didn’t directly mention shootings on college campuses in his recent interview with British GQ, he said mass shooters are looking for defenseless targets. “They do not want confrontation,” Vaughn said. “In all of our schools it is illegal to have guns on campus, so again and again these guys go and shoot up these f—— schools because they know there are no guns there. They are monsters killing six-year-olds.”
Vaughn added that politicians send their kids to schools protected by guns and that the public should have the same rights. “Banning guns is like banning forks in an attempt to stop making people fat,” he said. “Taking away guns, taking away drugs, the booze, it won’t rid the world of criminality.”
