Posted on 02/18/2008 6:48:28 PM PST by neverdem
Web Exclusive
It was a sickeningly familiar scene. A student-gunman opened fire Thursday during a lecture at Northern Illinois University, killing five and wounding 15 before turning the gun on himself. The deadly spree was the fifth school shooting this week—and a traumatic reminder that for all the efforts to improve campus security nationwide since the massacre at Virginia Tech last year, students and faculty remain disturbingly vulnerable.
A nonprofit organization called Students for Concealed Carry on Campus would like to change that. The group, whose 12,000 members nationwide include college students, faculty and parents, champions legislation that would allow licensed gun owners to carry concealed weapons on campus, in the hope that an alert and well-trained citizen could stop a deranged shooter before he or she could do serious damage. According to the National Conference on State Legislatures, 13 states are currently considering some form of "concealed carry" legislation aimed at campuses. Utah is the group's model; after a state Supreme Court ruling found that the state university had violated a law allowing permit holders to carry concealed weapons, the school agreed that guns could legally be carried on its grounds. Some states, like Colorado, do not explicitly ban licensed students and faculty from carrying hidden weapons onto school grounds, though most universities in such states impose restrictions of their own.
There are signs that the "concealed carry" group was making headway even before the tragedy at Northern Illinois. Earlier this month the South Dakota House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to force state universities to allow students to carry weapons on campus, according to GOP state Rep. Tom Brunner. The bill, which Brunner sponsored, recently died in the state senate, but Brunner said he intends to bring...
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"It's not an issue that's going to go away," Brunner said.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsweek.com ...
I think that's the gist of Hillary's latest position on the 2nd Amendment.
With thousands of young men and women being released from active duty every year, I would suspect that a significant number of them will be going to college on the GI Bill. The colleges and universities should recruit some of these people, deputize them, and send them into the classrooms with handguns in their backpacks. A whacko would never know when he walked into a room if he’d be facing an armed combat veteran or not.
Last week I heard 2 liberal colleagues discussing the school shooting. They asked me what I thought. I told them that as a part of their duties and certification, all school principals should be required to carry a pistol and consistently hit a target this (holding up a CD) big. My colleagues turned pale and started stammering.
I think any veteran who has been trained in the use of guns should automatically be awarded a concealed carry permit as long as he has not been dishonorably discharged.
Why give conceal carry to more of the same people when they are allowed to walk free among us with an apparency of normalcy created by drugs, and we cannot know who they are?
The more gun control, the more violence. The less gun control, the more freedom from crime.
Am wondering if the drug ‘Prozac’ should be considered the real ‘smoking gun’ here; and the greater threat.
And it could be more than 5, at that.
Finally read the interview on that, I thought the guy presented a really clear and good argument.
And you should also be stripped of every other God given constitutionally enumerated right as well, ya think?
Only a court adjudicated determinationof fitness will suffice for the suspension of any rights, that is the law and that is the way it should be.
God Bless
I never thought I would see Newsweek print a basicly pro gun self defense interview!!!
The problem is that diagnosis of “mental” health problems are made rather freely these days- kids on ritalin, anti-depressants etc will , if this mentality (no pun intended)continues, result in a great number of people, who, without their knowledge or consent (especially minors) will be debarred from a constitutional right.
Under the Law currently, only a court can determine a person mentally defective and hence, debarred.
What about the thousands of combat veterans that do indeed suffer from various combat related pscychological stressors, both temporary and permanent-should they, perhaps the most qualified to actually be intrusted with the use of arms, be denied based on a medication or temporary result related to exposure to the horrors of war? In short order, especailly with todays medications and frequent prescription, we would be without a functional veteran combat force. Remember that all of our troops are volunteers-not just in the fight for a short forced hitch as in past conflicts, they are the backbone of our forces and too valueable/irreplaceable to be discharged simply because they saw the elephant and it spooked them. Have you ever been terrified? Did it make you permananenly incompetent? Most of our active duty forces (Army/Marine) have been deployed to combat at least twice, some are on the fourth iteration in Iraq or Afghanistan. Certainly their sacrifice is not going to be met with a shrug and a note stating that they are no longer able to enjoy the constitutinally enumerated, God given right to defend themselves and this country because they took an anti-depresant as a means to help them cope with the scars they obtained in the service of their country? Some, unfortunately will become permanently disabled from teh fight, mentally as well as physically, they, after appropriate court determination, must be declared debarred as the facts of the case require, but not soely because they are on a medication.
If so, then anyone with a heart condition on blood thinners, anti-heart attack meds must be debarred from driving or operating any machinery because, based on the medications they could die/have a cardiac episode and loose control of the vehicle potentially injuring or killing someone, yes?
Leaving the determination up to a “medical” authority” is a kin to allowing a cop to determine if one is in fact guilty of a suspected crime-too convenient to be objective.
The problem is that diagnosis of “mental” health problems are made rather freely these days- kids on ritalin, anti-depressants etc will , if this mentality (no pun intended)continues, result in a great number of people, who, without their knowledge or consent (especially minors) will be debarred from a constitutional right.
That IS the problem and it's two-fold. The psychiatric community is "treating" people, giving them drugs that allow psychotics to walk free among us and kill us because we have no means of recognizing them.
They defend this criminality by telling us we would be wrong for "stigmatizing the mentally ill."
I agree that too many children are being made into drug dependents, but when they are under the age of 18, that is the parents' doing.
Time to close the candy store.
If you really need the drugs to get through life, you don't need a gun -- and the rest of society will be better off.
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