Statistics
Aug
19
Will CU allow concealed carry on campus?
August 19, 2008 | Tagged "gun free" criminal friendly free-fire zones, campus concealed carry, Colorado University | Leave a Comment
A story by Brittany Anas from The Boulder Daily Camera that was printed in the Rocky Mountain News indicates that the Colorado Springs Chapter of Students for Concealed Carry on Campus plans to petition CU Regents to allow permit holders to carry on school property controlled by the University of Colorado. I agree with the opinion expressed in the group’s petition that “Gun-free zones only disarm victims.”
Comments from the anti-gunners on the article include fears that drunken college students will shoot up the University and lay waste to most of the surrounding area, if concealed carry permit holders are allowed to exercise their admittedly licensed rights on school property. It might be well to remember that CCW license holders have completed training courses and background checks. It is also against the law in Colorado to be in possession of a firearm while intoxicated or impaired. (Go to very end of the referenced page for this citation.) But then, opponents of concealed carry and guns in general usually seem more concerned about statutory offenses than mass murder.
The opponents of defensive concealed carry seem blind to the fairly obvious logical conclusion that rapists, muggers and spree killers will likely be deterred by the knowledge that a victim or victims might be armed. Research done by Wright and Rossi on the informal risk/benefit analyses performed by many criminals before commiting crimes certainly suggests a deterrent effect, as does research by Lott and Kleck.
The Left, of course, will probably spin this issue as one of allowing unrestricted importation of firearms onto college campuses, resulting in the ever popular “rivers of blood” scenario. Even more sad and perplexing, the next mass murder in a “gun free” criminal friendly free-fire zone will no doubt spark an increased drive for more gun control to further deprive potential victims of sociopathic killers of their last, best chance for self-defense.
Let’s hope the CU Regents take this opportunity to “do the right thing” and “save one life” in spite of the uproar that this petition is sure to cause in Liberal Academia, especially in the People’s Republic of Boulder. Beccaria was right and Jefferson was insightful to quote him.
“False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils except destruction. The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.
Can it be supposed that those who have the courage to violate the most sacred laws of humanity, the most important of the code, will respect the less important and arbitrary ones, which can be violated with ease and impunity, and which, if strictly obeyed, would put an end to personal liberty… and subject innocent persons to all the vexations that the guilty alone ought to suffer?
Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man. They ought to be designated as laws not preventive but fearful of crimes, produced by the tumultuous impression of a few isolated facts, and not by thoughtful consideration of the inconveniences and advantages of a universal decree.”
Let us hope that the Regents of Colorado University come down on the side of the innocents.
Def Mech