This Guy Gives Me Hope

From The Collegiate Times, one of the best pro-2A editorials I have ever read, bar none. This piece, written by Jonathan McGlumphy, is so sensible, even a fraternity brother could understand it.

I read with interest last week’s column on the issue of concealed carry on campus (“Guns on campus would be disastrous”, CT, July 12). I have my philosophical disagreements with the article, but first I would like to point out several pieces of information that were either misleading or flat-out incorrect. Let me also qualify this by saying that I am a holder of a Virginia Concealed Handgun Permit (CHP), so I can truthfully say I know what I am talking about.

Point #1: There is not one single statute banning CHP holders from carrying on campus. The so-called gun ban is a Virginia Tech policy that applies only to students, faculty and staff. The maximum penalty for violation of this policy is expulsion for students or termination for faculty and staff. There is no criminal penalty whatsoever. Additionally, Virginia’s Attorney General has opined that the Board of Visitors has no legal grounds to prohibit the general public from concealed carry on campus.

Point #2: The author of last week’s column writes “I don’t trust someone to walk around with something that can kill me just because he has paid the permit fee and has a piece of paper that says he is competent with a handgun.”

First of all, to get that “piece of paper,” I underwent eight hours of classroom training (including instruction from a law enforcement officer), as well as spending an entire day at the shooting range demonstrating that I understood firearms safety. Secondly, you don’t just “pay the permit fee.” You undergo an extensive criminal background check, so much so that they ask you to provide every physical address you’ve had for the past five years.

Point #3: The author describes a situation in which someone has a gun in his or her bag and accidentally drops it, resulting in a discharge. Guns do not simply “go off” because they were dropped. Someone must put his or her finger directly on the trigger and squeeze with anywhere from 4 to 12 pounds of force. Any instance of someone getting shot accidentally is not because the gun “just went off.” It is because someone broke the cardinal rules of firearms safety and had his or her finger on the trigger with the barrel pointed in a non-safe direction.

Point #4: The author writes, “...logic says that more guns mean more gun-related incidents.” I cannot provide any hard data on the number of firearms in Virginia because we do not have gun registration. However, I will point out that in 1995 — the year that Virginia became a “shall-issue” state — there were only a few thousand CHP holders in the Commonwealth. Currently there are over 120,000 CHP holders.

Now let us consider the level of violent crime over that same time period. According to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report (UCR) the rate of all violent crime in 1995 in Virginia was 361.5 per 100,000 residents, with the rate of murder being 7.6 per 100,000.
In 2005, the UCR reported Virginia’s rate of violent crime as being 282.8 per 100,000, and murder 6.1 per 100,000.

So my question is that if we now have significantly more CHP holders as we did 12 years ago, why has the rate of violent crime has not skyrocketed? Obviously, armed citizens are not the only factor that affects crime rates, but the author’s claim that more guns automatically lead to more crime is questionable in the face of these numbers.

The author also seems to think that a student who is armed would casually take a life over something so petty as a poor grade in a class. Let’s consider Utah, where concealed carry on campus by CHP holding students is allowed by state law. I am not aware of any incidents in recent history of a legally armed student committing a firearm assault at a Utah university.

Having gone over the facts, let me insert my own opinions. The author claims to be a believer in the Second Amendment. I am a believer of all 10 Amendments listed in the Bill of Rights, including the First Amendment. However, I don’t go calling for restrictions on free speech when someone prints a column full of misleading information.

Let’s go back to Point #1: that the firearms ban only applies to students, faculty and staff. What if Virginia Tech were to enact a policy of “free-speech zones” restricting or prohibiting what students can say and where they can say it? I don’t think there would be too much support for that. So why is it OK to restrict one civil liberty but not another?

The author further derides CHP holders by insinuating that we are cowboys just itching to get into a gunfight. In my experience, this could not be further from the truth. One of the very first things I was told in my CHP training was to do my very best to avoid any situation where I might even need a gun. CHP holders are taught that a firearm is to be used only in the very gravest extreme, when all other options of saving your life — or someone else’s — have failed.

I do agree with the author on one point, though. He says that we as a culture need to move away from the notion that violence is a solution to our problems. It does bother me that violence is glorified in our news media, entertainment industry and even our federal government (only then it’s called war).

However, there is a difference between aggressive violence and defensive violence. I will not sit and wait for the police to arrive and save me when the Chos and Morvas of the world come around. The police are neither legally obligated to protect citizens (according to the Supreme Court) nor are the always able. Self-defense is both an individual right and an individual responsibility.

Having a gun available is just one of many options of self-defense, brains and wits being the first and foremost.