Articles
College campus incidents remind that no place is safe
- Category: Concealed Carry
- Published on Thursday, 04 August 2011 23:43
- Written by Daniel White
Yesterday afternoon, Ohio State University was placed on high alert after two women reported attempted abductions at knifepoint.
Campus police gave this account of what happened yesterday afternoon: A man approached a woman about 3 p.m. at a bus stop at Medical Center Drive near Cannon Drive. He put an arm around her waist, held a knife with a 3-inch blade to her side and told her, “You’re coming with me.”
When the woman asked what he intended to do, he replied: “I am going to rape you.” The woman ran and got away safely, Morman said.
Minutes later, another woman was accosted nearby as she was about to get into her car, which was parked on a grassy field at Cannon Drive and King Avenue. The man grabbed her by the sweater and told her that he was going to take her with him. She also ran away.
Today, Virginia Tech was placed on lockdown when reports came in of a gunman being sighted on campus. No suspect was found after a five hour search.
Both of these incidents serve as harsh reminders that no place is completely safe from violence and law abiding citizens deserve the right to defend their lives whether they are on the streets of Cleveland or on campus.
This is the subject of the mission of Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, an organization dedicated to bringing the right to keep and bear arms to college campuses across the nation.
David Burnett, spokesman for the group, said in a press release about the Virginia Tech incident, "Colleges have entered into an informal alliance with criminals. By banishing lawfully-armed citizens, the college is denying the right to self-defense and creating a defense-free environment which leaves colleges extremely vulnerable – and attractive – to criminals."
Ohio is one of 24 states that completely prohibit citizens, even if they have jumped through the hoops to obtain a concealed carry license, from carrying their defensive firearm on campus (though Ohio does allow you to keep a firearm locked in your vehicle on campus). According to SCCA, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, and Wyoming all have bans, though Texas does allow individual campuses to opt out of the law and permit carry. Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Virginia, Washington, and West Virginia do not have blanket bans, but do allow such institutes to ban if they choose to. Other states allow local municipalities to regulate concealed carry. In contrast, Utah prohibits colleges from banning lawful armed self-defense.
As Virginia Tech’s Attorney-General Ken Cuccinelli pointed out in the aforementioned press release, gun-ban polices "are ineffectual because persons who wish to perpetrate violence will ignore them, and that the net effect of such policies is to leave defenseless the law-abiding citizens who follow these policies."
College students should have the same right to choose to defend their lives as all other law abiding adults. Only by doing so do we have any hope of closing campuses as hunting grounds for two-legged predators.