In a weaker moment I read an article in today's The Chronicle of Higher Education about gun rights on college campuses.
Here's the graff in question:
in response to tragedies like the massacre at Virginia Tech and fatal shootings at other institutions, many state legislatures have introduced, and at least one has passed, laws to allow people to carry concealed weapons on college campuses. But such laws would not, as their proponents suggest, help students and staff members shoot active killers, administrators said during a panel here on Monday. Instead, the laws would have a slew of scary consequences, they said, creating campus environments not unlike the Wild West.To address this critique ask yourself several questions: Why do gun control advocates always say that the country will descend into some kind of "Wild West" when we vote against their policies? Why are they always wrong? With shooting rampages occurring like clock work on America's campuses, might it be time to stop being sheep?
God forbid a shooting were ever to occur on this campus. We know from past posts that Pomona, not Claremont McKenna, is one of the nation's most dangerous schools. And we hope to keep it that way, though a knifing or so might retard our progress.
I used to think at my old private high school that the phrase "it could never happen here," protected me from the likelihood of being shot on campus. I didn't know my school's history.
Several years before I arrived two outsiders arrived to attend one of our dances -- sound familiar yet? One of them proceeded to open fire on the other. Though fortunately no one was killed, one student went to the emergency room with a bullet lodged in his butt. The school canceled all inter-school dances indefinitely.
The Claremont McKenna administration seems to consider a firearm on campus tantamount to endangering all of us. Just look at The Basic Rule of Conduct.
1. Actions which cause the personal injury or death of another, or which threaten or endanger the personal safety or well-being of others. Such actions include, but are not limited to
e. Possessing or storing on campus firearms or ammunition.
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There once was a time when Claremont McKenna's student body boasted some of the fittest and finest the nation had. They were soldiers, thanks to the the G.I. bill, who knew their way around a rifle. Today we are targets for outsiders whose respect for property and persons extend only as far as their ability to take advantage of us.
I suppose we should be happy that at the very least the Claremont R.O.T.C. chapter runs a course entitled "Riflery and Orienteering." Your faithful correspondent tried entering, but with no success.
There were just too many students in the class.
7 comments:
A few comments..
1) Riflery and Orienteering is the easiest PE class, so alot of students who do not actually want to move for PE take it. Not because they want to learn how to fire guns, primarily.
2) Can you show me stats that show how Pomona is one of the most dangerous schools in the nation? (I'm not trying to bust your ass here, I'm just curious, I spend a ton of time there and I've never seen anything even borderline sketchy.)
3) Why do you hate on the other colleges so much? You know... we are part of the consortium...
4) Agreed on the greater gun freedom, though. And a hidden weapon is fine, more or less. But the thing is, having a gun on campus increases the chances that someone will manically go on a shooting spree, or if it isn't properly concealed, some other maniac will take the gun of another person. HOWEVER I personally feel that these situations are unlikely to happen, but it's always the unlikely situations that people are scared of.
Anywho... I'd love those stats. :)
1) Yep. And you know the reason for why all those kids decided to take Riflery and Orienteering.
2) http://stagafling.blogspot.com/2007/04/its-not-easy-being-car-at-pomona.html
3) I don't hate on the other colleges, but I really, really don't like most of them for a whole host of reasons. I think my beefs are generally legitimate.
4) Olga, we can never, ever predict when someone will go on a shooting spree. Sometimes crazies are just crazies and they go on killing sprees with knives. The question is what right does the school have (or any group really) to make other people take risks they do not want to take.
and with all those drug dealers, felons and more recently crusaders....
Thanks for the link, although it seems like your readers actually took your declaration on Pomona seriously. Since you weren't here at the time, I thought you might like this bit of absurdity from last year:
http://stagafling.blogspot.com/2007/04/bullets-dont-fire-themselves.html
I also might be mistaken, but I think there was a south quad kid a few years back who owned a rifle. He shot rabbits for the purpose of consumption.
I don't see a problem with allowing concealed carry permit owners conceal a weapon on campus. You have to go through lots of training, and it isn't very easy to obtain a CC from the state (especially in Cali). They also stipulate many things, such as, the person with the CC can not touch alcohol while carrying, etc, etc and they are major felonies if broken. I guess they might be afraid that potentially any student that campus police approach could be strapped, although, generally less than 1% of people actually would go through all the required training to obtain one. It would also be on record with the school as to which students do have one.
Personally, I think I would feel much safer having the ability to carry, or at minimum, safely store a handgun in my room for self defense.
I'm not sure I'd feel safe with guns on such a wet campus. Even if the rule forbidding the consumption of alcohol is in place, that's not going to necessarily prevent a belligerent drunk from using one.
And there was a lot of controversy regarding Pomona being "the most dangerous." It in part had to do with the number of auto thefts, but those "auto thefts" included a high number of people taking the campus security golf carts for a joy ride and in no way constituted a danger to anyone. Be reasonable. You've spent a semester in Claremont. You should know fully well that you're just fine at Pomona.
More regarding Pomona, from the facebook group, "Chirp, bitch, I go to Pomona: The #1 Most Dangerous School in America":
"To: The Pomona College Community
From: David Oxtoby,President
I am writing to let you know in advance about an article to appear on the Forbes.com Website later this week that will portray the College in a troubling and unfair light. Using the U.S. Department of Education campus crime statistics for the year 2005, a Forbes reporter is finalizing an article ranking American colleges according to the amount of crime reported on their campuses during that year. Depending upon how they parse the numbers, we may be listed in the top five for campuses with the most crime per capita -- possibly even at number one.
Obviously, this runs counter our own experience -- that this is an exceptionally safe campus. The main reasons for this unlikely ranking are twofold. First, the number of reported thefts at Pomona in 2005 was abnormally high -- 71 as compared to 41 in 2004 and 33 in 2006. (A big part of this spike was due to one group of juveniles who were caught and
stopped.) Second, the number of reported "motor vehicle thefts" on our campus in 2005 was listed at 13. This misleading statistic includes 11 cases of unauthorized use of a golf cart.
I would stress that the safety of our campus community is not in question here. The number of thefts in 2005 was a genuine concern, not to be dismissed or minimized. However, it is important to note that reported crimes against people on our campus were virtually non-existent that year, and that they remain among the lowest in our peer group of colleges.
Paradoxically, our vulnerability to theft may be exacerbated by the fact that our students feel so safe on this campus that they sometimes neglect to lock their doors. We have been working to encourage them to take more reasonable precautions to safeguard their property, and we hope to continue to bring those numbers down in the future.
In reporting alleged criminal incidents, Pomona makes a strong effort to follow the letter of the reporting rules laid down by the Department of Education in compliance with the Clery Act. These rules specifically require campuses to report items involving golf carts and joy riding. We are also required to include any incident reported to campus security, even if no police report is ever filed.
In truth, I believe the article and chart to be printed in Forbes say more about the magazine's methodology than they do about the relative security of Pomona's campus. If Forbes' intent was to identify campuses where personal security is a problem, then they have clearly failed. Pomona is, and will continue to be, a very safe place to live and work."
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