
When May I Shoot a Student? - leothekim
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/28/opinion/when-may-i-shoot-a-student.html
======
nsxwolf
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.

~~~
taybin
This is full on satire.

~~~
SilasX
Indeed. Poorly done, uninsightful satire.

~~~
taybin
How should it have been done?

~~~
SilasX
In a way that actually highlights problems with the proposed policy change,
rather than have me scratching my head about what scantron cheating has to do
with this.

------
MrMember
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.

------
MrZongle2
Simple answer: _under the same conditions you may shoot anybody else_.

Too much practicality for the academic class, I fear.

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

~~~
hga
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.

------
Beliavsky
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.

~~~
shawabawa3
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?

~~~
nsxwolf
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.

~~~
sentenza
I'd say that is wishful thinking. The number of college shooting perpetrators
that expected to get away without being killed is most likely zero.

Here in Germany there are very few guns. Nonetheless, one of the typical
places to go on a rampage is the court house, where you have a 100% likelyhood
of armed guards.

Also: Didn't the Kamikaze try to crash into heavily armed ships?

~~~
hga
" _Here in Germany there are very few guns_ "

Not even close. Official, legally registered guns? Perhaps. But memories are
long. Per the Small Arms Survey,
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_c...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country)
you're in 15th place, tied with Iceland, in a cluster of countries at around
30 per 100 residents also including Uruguay, Sweden, Norway, France, Canada,
and Austria.

For that matter, as of late Western Europe has been suffering more and worse
such incidents than the US, and that includes German school shootings in
Winnenden in 2009, Emsdetten in 2006, Rötz in 2005, Coburg in 2003 and Erfurt
in 2002
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_shooting#Europe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_shooting#Europe)).
3 of these incidents were small scale, but 2 resulted in 16 and 17 dead
respectively, and another miraculously ended with only the shooter killing
himself, but 37 injured, 4 students shot, etc.

I always find it ... amusing when Germans try to lecture Americans on this
topic.

Ah, have you stopped institutionizing your seriously mentally ill like the US
did starting in the early-mid '60s?

~~~
sentenza
Uh huh. Do you know when I last time have seen a gun here in Germany, not
carried by a police officer?

Never.

I have never seen a non-official handle a weapon, except on Television. In my
life.

Oh by the way. Memories are long, sure. I recently read of a big weapons find,
in the village next go mine. They found a lot of handguns and military rifles
that somebody stashed in a hidden room of an official building at the end of
the war. Do you know where those weapons went?

Straight to the trash. I don't even know if you can still use a weapon that
has just been lying around for seventy years.

And what has the mentally ill thing to do with anything? I've been to America.
Your mentally ill live in the street. How is that better?

~~~
hga
Your first point reinforces the point of the Small Arms Survey as I recall,
that most German guns are not in legal circulation. But the numerous shootings
I listed, which you completely ignored, show they all aren't stashed away.

" _I don 't even know if you can still use a weapon that has just been lying
around for seventy years._"

If it was cleaned properly before putting it away, and in a moderately dry
place, yes. Back then corrosive primers were common, so that was an essential
and inescapable part of owning a gun (counter-examples are the round the Swiss
adopted in 1911 (!) and the US M1 Carbine, a short rifle for officers and
others who weren't front line infantry). For that matter WWII ammo is still
generally just fine, modulo your having to much more thoroughly clean your gun
afterwords.

ADDED: I have used/owned two military rifles manufactured in WWII, a
Springfield 03A3 and a Garand. Basically, I'd consider myself well equipped if
I had most any originally military rifle starting with the Mauser 1898. Yes,
more than a century old....

And the fact that you haven't deinstitutionalized your mentally ill like we
insanely (so to speak) have puts a different complexion on your crime,
including "gun crime" statistics and incidents.

------
carsongross
An armed classroom is a polite classroom.

------
leothekim
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.

~~~
hga
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.

~~~
leothekim
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?

~~~
hga
" _The first point really isn 't diminished. How many people do you know did
things under the legal age limit in college?_"

We're talking about Idaho allowing legal concealed carry on public campuses,
right? How it illegal concealed carry germane to that???

Indeed I was stuffing straw, and you're more than encouraged to replace my
best guess supposition with what you actually propose based on your
observation.

" _Why is [allowing guns on campus] prioritized over mental health reform?_ "

Because we can actually do something about the former, while the latter is
blocked by the ACLU and the usual suspects. In fact, "severe"
deinstitutionalization has a longer history than severe national level gun
control (state level gun control has a complicated history, most post-
Reconstruction, around the turn of the century aimed at the new waves of non-
Anglo-Saxon immigrants, or starting in the '70s), the latter starting in '68,
and it's been at net rolled back starting in '86, with a nationwide sweep of
shall issue laws starting with Florida in '87, now with the Federal courts
getting in the act soon to cover 90% of the population.

There have been a very few slight wins WRT to mental health counter-reform,
but nothing at all like the RKBA reforms. So while we continue to beat our
head against a brick wall in the former, pushing the latter is merely
reinforcing success, a sound tactical and strategic principle.

And one check against the public dangers of deinstitutionalization. Not that
most of the severely mentally ill are anything but a danger to themselves, but
we can't help but notice the solid correlations of severe mental illness and
these shootings, and as noted elsewhere, for a long time, except for one, a
correlation with "Gun Free Zones". Decreasing those may not help at net, but
it will help those in areas where effective self-defense and its deterrent
effects are allowed once again. And that's part of why it was the one Colorado
gun-grabbing measure to fail last year.

As for your last point, we've been litigating that, going for age 18, and just
lost a few days ago with the Supremes. Obviously any line is arbitrary, but
it's a well and long established principle that "children" don't have the full
constitutional rights of adults, that their parents stand in for them there.
And for some time, that the ages of 18 to 21 are where we draw these
boundaries; are you old enough to remember the ratification of the 26th
Amendment ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-
sixth_Amendment_to_the_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-
sixth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution))?

