Op-Ed
There Goes My Gun
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Republicans want concealed carry on campus and the new Captain America’s packing heat, but our columnist says guns still aren’t super.
The Absurdity Exhibition
Usually I don’t bother with comic books due to an overriding suspicion that everyone associated with comic books is a gigantic nerd, but now that Captain America packs heat I have to delve into the gag-inducing world of tighty-whiteys and moldy retainers to stand against guns. The new Captain America — who made his debut in January after the old Captain got a cap busted in his fictional ass — assumes the position of superhero with some added help. Now instead of fighting for good with all-American muscle, a flimsy shield and a sex-slave mask, Captain American is rollin’ hot with a cool 9 mm.
Superheroes fly or shoot web out of their forearms or don purple short-shorts and smash people or do just about anything other than shoot people. Shooting people is in no way super. Comic book readers all over America are overturning coffee tables in their mother’s basements in rage; they are interrupting sixteen-hour World of Warcraft sessions to rant about Captain Copout on some of the least-read message boards in the universe.
Despite its embarrassing lameness, this Captain America saga has some relevance to Cornell as the Student Assembly is considering a resolution that would allow licensed gun owners to carry their arms on campus. The passage of this resolution would effectively transform the student body into the new Captain America — armed and paranoid and ready to pump some nutty grad student full of lead in the name of justice.
In a recent Sun report, S.A. director of elections, Sun columnist and cowboy hat enthusiast Mark Coombs ’08 said, “he hoped the resolution would be approached ‘intellectually and seriously.’” My initial reaction to this plan was that it’s probably the dumbest plan ever. But perhaps my intuition that more people will get shot if there are more guns, that maybe zero guns on campus is better than a few hundred, is rooted in prejudice. I’ve never even shot a gun that didn’t fire foam discs. I was raised by anti-gun parents who took me to the Million Mom March and obviously my first impression represents an anti-gun position. How can I envision a world where everyone is happy and safe and packing heat if I’ve been brainwashed by California liberals to be anti-gun?
So to honor Coombs, who I respect and who seems far too hilarious to be a gun nut, I’ll approach this resolution intellectually and seriously.
Does this resolution make our campus safer? If I were to consider this question intellectually the answer would have to be both yes and no. The relative safety of a gun-filled campus is dependent entirely on circumstance. It seems the campus would be markedly safer in the event of an attempted massacre in the mold of Virginia Tech or Northern Illinois. The murderous psychopath would be gunned down after getting off just a handful of rounds, thus saving lives. Even widespread gun-holding couldn’t prevent the attack. Keep in mind that these killers often take their own lives. They aren’t trying to get away with murder; they are trying to commit murder-suicide. It’s not like they are going to be deterred by the proposition that someone else could do the final deed for them. Still, concealed carry would limit the body count assuming the students returning fire had good aim.
But this seems to be the only circumstance in which this resolution would make the campus safer. For all those days when psycho-killers aren’t enacting a planned, suicidal massacre the campus would be littered with dozens of unnecessary guns. A peaceful place with dozens of loaded guns is less safe than a peaceful place with zero guns. No matter your position in the gun debate, whether you’re as conservative as that smutty coke-whore Ann Coulter or as liberal as the overweight hippies at the Million Mom March, you have to agree with that.
This argument seems to be one of risk-reward. Does the risk of having dozens of live guns on campus, and the massive fear and paranoia of unarmed students that goes along with that, outweigh the reward of shrinking the pile of body bags to a size that’s hardly newsworthy?
The answer to this question must be that the risk isn’t worth the reward. A campus with guns is a dangerous campus at every moment of every day of every year. A campus without guns is a safer campus with the lone exception of a Virginia Tech situation — a situation that has never happened on this campus and is remarkably rare.
This resolution certainly won’t pass, but its presentation as a solution to on-campus gun violence says something about our society. It represents a society that’s too proud to accept the reality that on-campus violence is something we are either going to have to live with or sacrifice our liberty, safety and peace of mind to contain. We are naïve in our thinking; we are the panicking obsessive compulsive who tears down the house because there’s a coffee stain on the rug; we are the delusional snickering president who decides the cure for a hopeless dying war is more war. We are Captain America 2.0 — lame and self-conscious in a goofy red, white and blue suit, clutching our gun tight and panting the heavy pants of a paranoid not-so-super hero.
Tony Manfred is a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be contacted at tmanfred@cornellsun.com. The Absurdity Exhibiton appears alternate Mondays.
The mindset of a CCW holder
I wrote this little bit as an answer to so many people who think that those who carry firearms are all a bunch of shoot 'em up happy Hill Billies.
I Carry Concealed
Read it and understand that the great majority of us who carry are former police, military, or have spent our entire life around guns, and have not, by the age of 21 (the nominal age to get a carry permit in most states) committed a single act of violence.
First of all, I've got to
First of all, I've got to agree with you on the Capitan America thing. Totally lame. Guns in comic books are for the no-holds-barred vigilante type, like the Punisher. Not for paragons like the Capitan.
As for the topic at hand, I've gone through some of the same thought processes you present in your article, but I'm not convinced that the conclusion that you have come to follows from your argument.
Things that I agree with:
Guns on campus would be a major factor in stopping an in progress school shooting before the police arrive.
Catching a glimpse of a concealed weapon in a classroom would be scary.
Guns on campus would make an average day of classes more dangerous.
I do have some caveats to those statements, however. For the first one, if there is one armed crazy person and one armed civilian, and the civilian shoots/subdues the crazy person before the police get there, that's probably the best of the likely outcomes. But what if there are two armed civilians and they think that the other is the shooter? Or what if the police find the armed civilian before either finds the shooter? There are cases that could end with needless deaths due to confusion about who is the bad guy. The good thing about those scenarios is that the ones who are in added danger are the ones who decide to carry and draw a weapon. In every scenario where there is an actual shooter, unarmed civilians are safer.
Second, I would certainly be unsettled to see someone with a gun on campus. I think that this is an illogical reaction and is due in part to the toxic attitude toward guns in the US. From NRA types who give the "from my cold dead hands" line to gangstas who threaten to "pop caps" in people they don't like, guns have a terrible image. According to my knee jerk set of associations, people who use guns in real life are gun nuts, criminals, police and soldiers. And even police and soldiers carry a sort of gun stigma in my mind as authoritarian figures. But if I stop to think about it, I know a lot of people who use guns at shooting ranges for fun and a small number who carry a concealed weapon for self protection. I am not threatened by these people because I know them. But the number of people who are gun-toting criminals/crazies is much smaller than the number who use guns for fun and safety, and it is most likely the case that a randomly selected person with a gun belongs to the latter category rather than the former. I don't know how to alleviate the worry in a lot of people's reaction to guns, but I think that increased exposure to ordinary people who use them would be beneficial.
The third one is pretty self evident. There is the possibility of a negligent discharge; a case of false alarm where there is no shooter, but people believe there is, etc. However, I don't think this risk is as high as you think it is. Modern guns are not prone to going off unattended unless their owner is grossly negligent. The people who I know that are willing to go through the trouble of getting a concealed carry permit are the type of people who have great respect for the power of guns and are rigorous about keeping them in good condition so that they never have to worry about deadly malfunctions. Since we are talking about Cornell going from a place where guns are not allowed to a place where they are, I have no problem with Cornell imposing any terms it wants on possession. If someone has to go through the Cornell Handgun Safety PE course and pass a semester long concealed carry course before they can have a gun on Cornell property, that's fine with me. I think it's a good idea to take whatever steps are necessary to reduce the inherent dangers of guns on campus. That way, the benefits in those specific scenarios where they can save lives would become the important considerations.
I'm not saying that I'm sure that having guns on campus is a good idea. I just think that the argument that you have presented is incomplete and does not support your conclusion. If someone disagrees with what I have written, I would be interested in hearing why.
Finally, I have to take exception to the idea that insulating students from the subject of their paranoia is more important than preventing shooting deaths. Concern about the safety of students is a legitimate reason to debate the place of guns on campus. Baseless (by definition, unreasonable) fear is not.
Good article. I bet it
Good article. I bet it speaks for a lot of people at Cornell.
The proposal before the Student Assembly is not going to flood the campus with guns. The SA doesn't have that authority. Tompkins county and the State of New York both are working hard to keep guns off campus. Based on other colleges your administration doesn't think it is a good idea either.
But we don't have to make guesses about the scale of the relative dangers. We have years of experience with concealed carry in this country. That experience was analyzed by economist Dr. John Lott. He found that allowing concealed carry resulted in a drop in violent crime on the order of seven percent. That is the befit side. Dr. Lott also looked at the problems with concealed carry and found no significant risks.
Regardless of how scary you may think guns are the reality is different. Mostly they just lay there. The real scary part is who has the gun. Right now only the bad guys and the police have guns on your campus. If you see a cop you are safe. Look around, do you see a cop? I didn't think so.
In summary the benefits far outweigh the risk of concealed carry. That is why 48 states have some provision for civilian carry. Vermont allows anyone own can legally own a handgun to carry it concealed with no license at all and still have of of the lowest crime rates in the country.
It sounds to me like you could use some trigger time to get a better handle on what real guns are like. Good luck with that.
Guns on campuses
I agree, outside the scenario of the crazed mass-murderer, guns on campus would make college less safe. For example, a man who wants to abduct, rape, and murder a co-ed would now risk getting shot. Likewise a homophobe who wants to smash a student flaming queen over the head with a baseball bat. Even and ordinary robber who demands only your wallet in exchange for letting you live will now risk death himself.
These criminals' lives are important. Even worse, if students don't suffer being robbed now and then they might not be as willing to sacrifice as much of their future earnings to treat the root causes of crime (racism, poverty and economic inequality). If coeds don't get raped now and then, who will bother to show up at the "Take Back the Night" marches? Victim-disarmament is valuable for its own sake; how much more so in a place that is intended to provide left-leaning re-education to the children of reactionary capitalists!
Same old arguments
I see the same tired arguments that people with CHPs will be irresponsible and carnage will increase. The most likely result of allowing carry on campus is that the shooting is less likely to start. These disturbed people are smart enough to start shooting where they don't expect resistence.
We need more people to learn about guns and learn to use them. Even if they never intend to use one. Knowing that the safety is on or that even without a magazine there is a round in the chamber could save a life. And more knowledge about guns would reduce the fear of guns and create more GOOD use of guns. Like back in the old days before gun control when crime was relatively rare and people left their doors and windows open at night.
Putting the 2nd FIRST!
I totally support the right of lawful adults to carry concealed wherever they dsire. As a Jewess in the US, I want to remind all that America wasn't won with a registered gun, and that criminals are stopped by FIREARMS, not by talk. That's why all REAL Americans put our 2nd Amendment FIRST!