The eCrozier

Well, here we go again. Our State Legislature wants to double down on their Safe Carry Protection Act passed in the summer of 2014. Now they’ve introduced House Bill 859, the so-called Campus Carry bill, to allow students, faculty, and staff to carry concealed weapons at our state colleges and universities. It passed the House. Now it goes to the Senate. We must address the gross inequality of educational opportunity in this State. We must work to develop more jobs providing a livable wage for people so they can work themselves out of poverty. So, rather doing that hard, complex work, our Legislators spend their time on unneeded legislation that’s in search of a rationale.

My hunch is that those supporting this bill have a fantasy garnered only from the movies, where some student or professor stops a deadly attack by taking out his/her concealed weapon and shooting the deranged individual. But, of course, this is a fantasy not based on any evidence or data. The facts on campuses speak very differently. For example, “on college campuses where concealed carry is permitted, the crime rates actually increased while the student population decreased” (Gavran 2015). So, the facts don’t support a claim that having concealed weapons on campus in any way reduces criminal behavior. It actually dissuades students from wanting to attend there.

The data are also clear that even trained law enforcement officers have low firearm accuracy rates in live-fire situations. A Rand Corporation study in 2008 reported that even the most highly trained police officers have an average “hit rate” of only 18% during gunfights. It only bumps up to 30% when the suspects aren’t returning fire. So, 70% of the time highly trained professionals miss their intended targets. How well will an average college student or professor do when faced with such a high stress situation? They’re more likely to harm themselves or innocent people than stop a crime. David Chipman, a former ATF agent, said last year: “Despite what we see on TV, the presence of a firearm is a greater risk, especially in the hands of an untrained person.”

For the life of me, I can’t understand why our Legislators think this is a good idea. There’s no reliable data to support its need. On the contrary, all the reputable research on this topic screams out: “Don’t do this! It won’t help save anyone’s life and it’s very likely to make things worse.” Given the high rate of binge drinking on our college campuses, the thought of adding guns to that particular mix is horrifying. Loaded guns + drunk college kids = nothing good whatsoever. So what could be going in the minds of our Legislators? I assume they’re all honorable people seeking to do what they “feel” is right. And I believe the operative word here is “feel.” House Bill 859 just “feels” right to them. They “feel” it’s a way for them to expand 2nd Amendment rights, or at least how they interpret the clause: “a well-relegated militia.” Feelings, though, are just that: feelings. We should be glad our Legislators have strong feelings about their work. And I appreciate that they’re guided by those strong feelings. That’s human. We should expect such. But we should also expect them also to be guided by data and evidence. And when the data and the evidence tell us how we “feel” about something is incorrect, then we should be mature enough to be guided by sound judgment and not just our strong feelings.

+Scott