Ohio State University shooting proves need for concealed carry on campus

By Gerard Valentino

When a disgruntled employee shot two supervisors earlier this week, Ohio State University added its name to the list of educational institutions with multiple victim shootings and a policy against legal concealed carry on campus.

During the debate about concealed carry in Ohio several years ago, the OSU administration took the predictable, and intellectually lazy, stance that guns don't have a place on campus, where enlightened thought should be unencumbered by such a "threat."

Basically, they argued that open and challenging debate can't take place if concealed carry is allowed on campus. A clear indication of how little faith college administrators put in the self-control of students and faculty.

Although college administrators claim they are among the most progressive thinkers in the world, with superior deductive reasoning skills, their argument against legal concealed carry on campus fails to rise above the shrill cries that guns scare them, and so they should scare you too.

Such a poor argument, devoid of any semblance of logic, displays the narrow-minded thought process that has invaded so-called institutions of higher learning.

OSU and other universities claim to champion the educational process and the free thinking that is necessary to create cutting-edge ideas in philosophy, engineering, mathematics, and other noteworthy subjects. Yet, if someone breaks ranks on the issue of guns, they are likely to be labeled as an anti-social gun-crazed nut.

There is no way to know if the victims of the shooting in question would have chosen to carry a gun for self-defense, and there is no way to know if an armed victim could have changed this outcome.

However, we do know that in cases where an armed victim fought back, the death toll was much lower when compared to shootings where the victims were unarmed. We also know that schools are known victims zones, and that spree killers are attracted to these locations because it is unlikely that anyone there can stop them.

The sad fact is gun-free zones are without question the location of choice for spree-killers, disgruntled ex-employees, disaffected students, and the mentally unstable. Despite that fact, anti-gun advocates continue to push gun-free zones as an anti-violence utopia. Meanwhile, cowards intent on mayhem and a high body count see gun-free zones as an opportunity.

Part of the reasoning used by many of America's most notorious spree-killers has been to kill as many people as possible until the police arrive to end their murderous spree. Several times, an armed citizen happened to be in the right place and ended the killing much faster. Even when an armed citizen has been able to stop a spree killer, it has done little to change the way college administrators look at the gun issue.

Sadly, it doesn't have to be this way at our colleges and universities. If college administrators would challenge the status quo, they just might realize that their anti-gun rules are putting everyone on campus at risk.

During the past year, OSU President E. Gordon Gee surprised Ohioans by coming out in favor of lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18. He did so based on the results of studies that showed the higher drinking age did little to keep students from drinking, and put them at risk because they had to break the law to get alcohol.

President Gee’s willingness to question the status quo was commendable, and now he needs to turn his attention to allowing legal concealed carry on campus. The fact remains that licensed students, faculty, and employees are not a threat to public safety or free debate at institutions of higher learning.

Just as the gun bans in Chicago and Washington D.C. benefited only criminals, banning legal concealed carry on campus gives common street thugs and murderers the ability to attack helpless victims.

Concealed carry advocates are sure an unbiased study into the value of concealed carry on campus will leave an institution like OSU with only one option – to drop their unfounded opposition to legal concealed carry on campus.

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