Despite residing at one of the safest college campuses in the tri-state area, the Democratic Socialists at Stony Brook University are not content with their campus police and have published a four-page manifesto with a myriad of requests, including a call for campus police to be disarmed.
According to the manifesto, white supremacy is a bigger issue at the campus than student safety. Additionally, because there are more rapes reported than there are violent crimes, patriarchy is listed as a culprit as well. Therefore, according to the manifesto, the police should be disarmed, and the campus should instead focus on amending those two issues.
“White men are overwhelmingly more likely than others to perpetrate mass shootings. They are also the most likely to perpetrate rape,” the manifesto reads. “Given that rape is more of a problem on our campus than guns, and that the same group that most often commits rape, also most often commits mass shootings, we should focus on confronting patriarchy and white supremacy rather than arming officers with military grade equipment.”
While it is true that the number of rapes reported did outweigh other violent crimes in the past few years at Stony Brook, the manifesto authors fail to take into account the obvious implications of having armed campus security officers as a deterrent for violent crime on campus. Despite this, the manifesto authors decided to take their argument against having armed campus police a step further, arguing that the police probably wouldn’t even respond accurately if a shooter were to attack campus.
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“During the Virginia Tech shooting, Columbine shooting, and the recent Parkland, Florida shooting, there were armed police officers in the vicinity who failed to respond to the situation,” the manifesto reads. “Therefore it does not make sense to assume that our campus police officers will respond more effectively to similar scenarios. Why does Stony Brook arm its police officers with AR-15s, ballistic helmets, and heavy duty vests, even if they are incapable of using such equipment effectively due to inexperience?”
While it is true that not every response to a mass shooting response will go according to protocol, the students are blatantly wrong to think that having a police presence doesn’t have some level of deterrence for individuals who may be planning crimes. Additionally, students should feel safer knowing that their police are equipped with the same level of deadly force that dangerous individuals may be carrying, rather than not armed at all.
