Op-Ed
Potshots: A Minty World of Pain
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At the February 28 Student Assembly meeting, Mark Coombs ’08 and Ahmed Salem ’08 introduced a resolution to allow the concealed carry of weapons on Cornell’s campus. For a week there was much wailing and gnashing teeth, and on March 6, the resolution was voted down. Rightly so, I say.
On my customary Uris Library e-mail checking jaunt one Tuesday, I walked into the room to find that it was empty save for an old man whose presence I will describe as “unsettling” — i.e., he was nuttier than pecan pie. But I used the power of reason to deconstruct and so overcome my knee-jerk prejudice: “Not all dirty people are crazy. Not all crazy people mutter. Not all crazy people are violent. Not all violent people are crazy.” I opened up a browser and had typed in my username when the man’s growl became a gravelly articulation: “Kill, I will.” With that I made my merry way back up the stairs and out the door.
Did this experience make me crave some Second Amendment protection? No. Give me a set of acrylic nails and pepper spray and I’m content.
Cornell doesn’t allow pepper spray on campus — there’s a resolution I would support — so I purchased the most menacing breath freshener I could find, crossed out “Binaca” and wrote “Mace” in furious Sharpie letters. The next clown-around who tries to stick me up for my Big Red Bucks is in for a minty world of pain.
The proponents of concealed carry have faith that most people are reasonable and intelligent. I don’t even trust people to use crosswalks. Because they don’t. They leap in front of your car and glare at you like it’s your fault they’re dimwitted.
There’s evidence enough on both ends to turn this blazing debate into statistical tedium. I’ve perused the articles, I’ve read the columns, I’ve weathered the rants. I get it. But in my mind, it boils down to this: legal authorization of concealed weapons on campus can mean the difference between Temperamental Ted from Econ flexing his knuckles or cocking the safety on his Glock.
My reductionist logic aside, even had the resolution passed, if the administration doesn’t want us to have attorneys in campus judicial proceedings, I suspect it would have reservations green-lighting pistols in lecture halls. Squabble amongst yourselves if it pleases you to do so, but I have hotter buttons to press.
Carolyn Byrne is a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences. She can be contacted at cbyrne@cornellsun.com. Her column, Byrne it Down, usually appears alternate Tuesdays.
Pepper Spray is much more reasonable
I'll never understand why the College Republicans feel we need guns to be safe bu don't support bringing non-lethal defense onto campus. Pepper spray is preferable for so many reasons.
-It is extremely effective at immobilizing and stopping assailants, and has a pretty respectable range
-It is small, cheap, and portable
-It will not get a good Samaritan gunned down by campus or city police if the cops find him/her before the assailant (as would happen with mistaken identity and gun)
-I might not follow the news closely, but I've never ever heard of a nut going on a pepper spray rampage and killing people. Oh wait, that's because it can't happen.
and most important....
IT IS NOT LETHAL!!! It knocks an attacker flat on the ground writhing in pain, but IT GOES AWAY. There is room for error. If someone gets hit in the cross fire they are in a lot of pain but live, their brains don't go sploosh over the floor.
Meeting reductionist logic with reductionist logic.
The fact of the matter is that if you bump carts with Temperamental Ted in the supermarket or spill a drink on him in a bar, there is no guarantee that he isn't packing heat. He can legally carry a concealed weapon just about anywhere off campus. If you aren't preoccupied about the dangers of concealed carry in the store, why are you preoccupied about the dangers of concealed carry on campus?