5.56X45mm
Milforum Mac Daddy
Unarmed and Vulnerable
Bradford Wiles, a grad student at Virginia Tech, made a pointed argument in an editorial for the Roanoke Times in August of 2006, following a previous incident on the VT campus*. His argument matches my own, and I understand his frustration.
I can understand Bradford Wiles. I cannot understand the thought processes of those who when thrust into a position where they are helpless decide that making themselves more helpless is the solution.
Living in a society requires compromises. These compromises must be carefully considered, and continuously evaluated and reevaluated to see if the benefit is worth the price. The current situation in schools does not pass that process of evaluation.
A college campus is a place where students go to increase their knowledge, learn a trade, and broaden their perspectives on the world. It is fundamentally no different than a factory or an office, which are places where workers go to earn a living or produce a product, with the goal of earning income to support themselves or their family. It is also no different than a store, where people go to trade their income for products they need. It is simply a location, where people gather to accomplish a specific task.
It is not a magical place, populated by angels who are helpless to take care of themselves and dedicated so fiercely on learning that they are no longer responsible citizens. It is a location overwhelmingly populated by adults.
Getting killed by a nut with a gun certainly prevents students from accomplishing their goals. It also prevents workers from earning their wage, shoppers from buying the products they need, or a farmer from raising his crops. Death is just as final for a cubicle worker as it is for a college student.
So why must we insist that colleges are “gun-free zones”? Why does entering a campus turn a Professor who is trusted to educate his students into a potential criminal who cannot be trusted with a firearm? Why should a student who is properly licensed by the state to carry a concealed weapon off campus automatically be considered a dangerous risk once he walks past that invisible dividing line?
There is no logic behind that argument, only emotion.
For a new student college is a vulnerable time. This is usually the first time that they have experienced full freedom - there are no parents checking that they are going to class, forcing them to do their homework, or making sure they they aren’t getting drunk at a frat party when they should be studying for finals. It is often the first time they have been isolated from their friends and family, and can initially be a lonely place. Dealing with these issues is perhaps the most important experience that they will take away from college. No matter how coddled they may have been growing up, they are adults by the time they enroll and must make these adjustments to survive.
The emotional aspect is much tougher on the parents. For eighteen or so years, they have overseen their child’s development. They have provided food, shelter, protection, and emotional support. Sending their child across the country and not being able to immediately see that their needs are being taken care of is a shocking break. That is probably one of the hardest times on a parent. Their child is now an adult, and can buy porn, join the Marines, vote, or get a job without them being able to do anything about it. That is simply the way the world works - it has always been that way.
The situation we have on college campuses right now is not representative of the real world, though. It is an extended childhood. It is a means for some students to lengthen their period of dependency on others, and a means for some parents to continue their period of control over their children.
That situation, based on emotion rather than logic, is why our schools are “gun-free zones”. What happened at Virginia Tech is a direct result of bad decisions and a poor societal compromise.
These societal compromises we make are based on simple math. We give up an inherent right to provide for ourselves and grant the state the authority to ensure that these rights are still protected. With that granting of authority comes the responsibility to ensure that it actually happens. When the state meets their responsibilities, the equation is satisfied and we benefit from the arrangement. We have made a good decision, and by sacrificing some of our personal liberties we have gained greater freedom for our society as a whole.
Sometimes we make bad compromises, and the result is a worse situation than the one we were trying to correct. That is the case we now face on college campuses.
No one wants to see a promising young student senselessly murdered. We decided to make a compromise - we would use the law to ban guns from college campuses. Students and faculty would give up their right to defend themselves and each other, and give the state that authority. The correlating responsibility is that students and faculty must be able to rely on the state to protect them.
This compromise has failed. The reasons are many and should have been obvious, had we not allowed emotion to rule over logic. One person who has reached the point where they decide that killing random people is the answer to their problems can wreak absolute havoc. The problem isn’t guns. A knife will do, as will poison, a machete, or a baseball bat. As horrible as the death toll at Columbine turned out to be, it was a fortunately low number - Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold had planted several bombs in the school, and only poorly constructed fuses stood in the way of hundreds of additional victims.
Bradford Wiles, a grad student at Virginia Tech, made a pointed argument in an editorial for the Roanoke Times in August of 2006, following a previous incident on the VT campus*. His argument matches my own, and I understand his frustration.
I can understand Bradford Wiles. I cannot understand the thought processes of those who when thrust into a position where they are helpless decide that making themselves more helpless is the solution.
Living in a society requires compromises. These compromises must be carefully considered, and continuously evaluated and reevaluated to see if the benefit is worth the price. The current situation in schools does not pass that process of evaluation.
A college campus is a place where students go to increase their knowledge, learn a trade, and broaden their perspectives on the world. It is fundamentally no different than a factory or an office, which are places where workers go to earn a living or produce a product, with the goal of earning income to support themselves or their family. It is also no different than a store, where people go to trade their income for products they need. It is simply a location, where people gather to accomplish a specific task.
It is not a magical place, populated by angels who are helpless to take care of themselves and dedicated so fiercely on learning that they are no longer responsible citizens. It is a location overwhelmingly populated by adults.
Getting killed by a nut with a gun certainly prevents students from accomplishing their goals. It also prevents workers from earning their wage, shoppers from buying the products they need, or a farmer from raising his crops. Death is just as final for a cubicle worker as it is for a college student.
So why must we insist that colleges are “gun-free zones”? Why does entering a campus turn a Professor who is trusted to educate his students into a potential criminal who cannot be trusted with a firearm? Why should a student who is properly licensed by the state to carry a concealed weapon off campus automatically be considered a dangerous risk once he walks past that invisible dividing line?
There is no logic behind that argument, only emotion.
For a new student college is a vulnerable time. This is usually the first time that they have experienced full freedom - there are no parents checking that they are going to class, forcing them to do their homework, or making sure they they aren’t getting drunk at a frat party when they should be studying for finals. It is often the first time they have been isolated from their friends and family, and can initially be a lonely place. Dealing with these issues is perhaps the most important experience that they will take away from college. No matter how coddled they may have been growing up, they are adults by the time they enroll and must make these adjustments to survive.
The emotional aspect is much tougher on the parents. For eighteen or so years, they have overseen their child’s development. They have provided food, shelter, protection, and emotional support. Sending their child across the country and not being able to immediately see that their needs are being taken care of is a shocking break. That is probably one of the hardest times on a parent. Their child is now an adult, and can buy porn, join the Marines, vote, or get a job without them being able to do anything about it. That is simply the way the world works - it has always been that way.
The situation we have on college campuses right now is not representative of the real world, though. It is an extended childhood. It is a means for some students to lengthen their period of dependency on others, and a means for some parents to continue their period of control over their children.
That situation, based on emotion rather than logic, is why our schools are “gun-free zones”. What happened at Virginia Tech is a direct result of bad decisions and a poor societal compromise.
These societal compromises we make are based on simple math. We give up an inherent right to provide for ourselves and grant the state the authority to ensure that these rights are still protected. With that granting of authority comes the responsibility to ensure that it actually happens. When the state meets their responsibilities, the equation is satisfied and we benefit from the arrangement. We have made a good decision, and by sacrificing some of our personal liberties we have gained greater freedom for our society as a whole.
Sometimes we make bad compromises, and the result is a worse situation than the one we were trying to correct. That is the case we now face on college campuses.
No one wants to see a promising young student senselessly murdered. We decided to make a compromise - we would use the law to ban guns from college campuses. Students and faculty would give up their right to defend themselves and each other, and give the state that authority. The correlating responsibility is that students and faculty must be able to rely on the state to protect them.
This compromise has failed. The reasons are many and should have been obvious, had we not allowed emotion to rule over logic. One person who has reached the point where they decide that killing random people is the answer to their problems can wreak absolute havoc. The problem isn’t guns. A knife will do, as will poison, a machete, or a baseball bat. As horrible as the death toll at Columbine turned out to be, it was a fortunately low number - Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold had planted several bombs in the school, and only poorly constructed fuses stood in the way of hundreds of additional victims.