Recent news accounts of the bittersweet commencement
exercises at Virginia Tech University refueled debate
in my university neighborhood and reinvigorated our
search for the real cause of the threat to our safety.
The debate centered on the need to mandate gun-free
zones on college campuses.
Well, mandating college campuses be gun-free zones
provides as much safety as holding your hands over
your eyes. Danger is either there or it's not. Holding
your hands over your eyes so you can't see danger has
nothing to do with whether danger is approaching.
The tragedy at Virginia Tech-a trauma for the entire
nation-forces us to ask how something like this could
happen. How could a fatal shooting happen in a place
where guns are not allowed? The answer: Gun-free
zones don't make college students or their campuses
safe.
Most people are rational and responsible. They are our
neighbors, our friends, our parents. These folks
don't use firearms to hurt people. They don't get
angry and pull a gun on someone. They don't run
someone over with a car just because they are upset.
The premise for gun-free zones is the product of
wooden-headed thinking. Governing entities seem to
think that without these zones, normal people like our
neighbors would spontaneously shoot people. If our
neighbors cannot be allowed to have firearms on state
campuses because they might do something terrible,
doesn't it follow that they might do something
terrible in their homes? So why don't we outlaw guns
from homes too?
The answer is because normal and decent people just
don't do such things. They are not a safety risk in
their homes or on campuses; and, they have rights
guaranteed all citizens in our federal Constitution.
So, gun-free zones are not designed to stop normal,
decent people. Instead, those who create gun-free
zones claim they are established to stop criminals or
unstable people from bringing firearms on campuses.
But the reality-painfully thrust on us with the tragic
deaths of 32 innocent people-is gun-free zones don't
stop mentally twisted criminals. The fact that
carrying a firearm onto a gun-free campus is against
the law or against school policy does not constrain
the behavior of someone who has already decided to
kill.
Seung-Hui Cho already decided to kill when he stepped
onto campus that morning. He was ready to take
innocent life, and end his own in the process. The
fact it was against the rules didn't matter to him. If
it meant anything, it meant he knew his victims and
that they would not be able to stop him before the
police arrived. Further abridging the rights of
law-abiding citizens is not the answer.