Self-Defense – Theory Versus Practice on College Campus

An amazing thing happens when you walk onto a college campus.  We take the smartest and most responsible young men and women and send them to college.  Some college administrators say that anyone who comes on campus is turned into an irresponsible idiot.  That sounds like magic to me. Turning 21 is the age where we recognize people as adults.  Let me remind you how things change at that magic age.

• Young adults turn 21, and they can take a job and pay their own way.
• They can start a business.
• They hold responsible occupations like pilots and nurses.
• They may have several years in the military by the time they are 21 years old.
• They are considered adults and can buy alcohol and make medical decisions for themselves.
• They can marry and start a family without parental consent.
• They can vote, sit on a jury and judge the lives of others.

Young men and women are responsible enough to do all those things.  Also, 21 year olds can apply for and receive a license to carry a concealed firearm in most states.. almost.  There is the exception when these same people walk onto a college campus.  Campus administrators say something bizarre happens when ordinary people step onto university property.

Remember who we are talking about.  We are talking about young men and women over 21 years of age.  They manage to own a firearm without incident everywhere else.  They are safer and more responsible than the average citizen.  We allow them to work dangerous jobs late at night and to discretely carry a firearm everywhere else, but not on most college campuses.  With a handful of exceptions, campus carry is forbidden.

You see, once on campus, concealed carry holders of every age are turned into idiots.  Not just students, but also the visitors, staff and faculty suddenly become irresponsible if they carry a gun.  Even the dozens of truck drivers who deliver to the university have a sudden change of character when the front wheels roll onto campus property.  Sure, that sounds crazy, but that is what university administrators from Texas, Idaho and Florida told us.  The administrators explained that guns don’t belong on campus.

Hmm.  They said guns don’t belong on campus.. but drugs, rape and robbery do belong on campus?  I hate to burst your bubble, Chancellor, but those problems are already on your campus whether you recognize them or not.  Look at a map and you will find that college campuses are located in the real world, not the fantasy world as seen from the academic ivory tower, and not the fantasy world invented by the university public relations officer.  Real people face real problems.. and we have already developed real solutions.

Many of those in higher education have a difficult time accepting the fact of self-defense.  Academia wants to live in a world of their own.  Theirs is a world surrounded with plastic warning signs that say, “no rape”, “no robbery” and “no guns”.  In short, they want to live in a world where problems don’t exist.  The latest trend in college politics is to treat sexual assault as a “college matter” and to exclude law enforcement and the criminal justice system. I have news for you, professor.  Sexual assault and robbery are real.. both on campus and off.  We’ve already learned how to handle rapists, assailants and thieves.

Disarming the safest people in society puts students at risk.  Those are the facts, thouigh I doubt any set of facts will change the minds of campus administrators. They dislike the thought of violence and hard choices.  They would rather pity the next victim than recognize the right of self-defense on campus.

Someone is suffering from arrested development and an overactive fantasy life.  It isn’t the visitors, students and staff on campus.  Eleven states already allow some carry on campus.

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Please rate, share and comment. Rob Morse