Mass persuasion prevented?
Posted by Ron Coleman on May 6, 2009
Instapundit reports about a college student who shot and killed a home invader evidently bent on major mayhem. It’s a chlling story, with a relatively happy ending, and certainly reminded me of an earlier post where I criticized Glenn Reynolds for prescribing that collegians pack heat on campus. I wasn’t disagreeing with his policy, necessarily, merely his analysis there. I got slaughtered in the comments, but I still had my doubts on the ponit.
I was about to throw in the towel on this until I took a close look at the story. Something seemed wrong. And it is, a little: From what I can tell, these were college students. But they weren’t “in college,” i.e., on campus — the incident, which was truly awful and would have been far worse but for the fact that one of the students was able to save the day with his own weapon, appears to have taken place in an off campus apartment. It’s not exactly clear, but that’s how it reads to me.
So when Glenn says, “Clayton Cramer comments: ‘If you have any doubt as to whether keeping colleges gun-free zones makes sense, I think this answers the question,'” I really have no idea what either of them are talking about. Do you?
Tom DeGisi said
Yes, I do. Their contention is that legally armed students on campus would be able to prevent wholesale slaughter on campus in the same way that these legally armed students off campus were able to prevent wholesale slaughter off campus.
Yours,
Tom DeGisi, aka Wince and Nod
Tom DeGisi’s last blog post..Persistence Is Good
Ron Coleman said
But then it’s not a campus argument. What happened with the college students in this case could have been exactly the same picture with kids who graduated a week earlier. It would be no more probative as to the issue of gun use on campus, which is posited, and I say not unreasonably, as a relatively isolated environment with some measure of its own security apparatus and, in general, social order.
I’m not arguing the merits. I’m saying this does not at all address the issue of whether or not people should have a Smith & Wesson in their book bags.
Eric said
I don’t believe that Instapundit or Clayton Cramer argue that there’s something special about campuses. Indeed, I would say that the entire point of their argument is that there is nothing special about a campus.
Other people have been making the (to me, extremely weak) argument that there is something special about a campus; exactly what, I don’t really understand; campus cops, in my experience, are far more likely to run into drunken underclassmen than homicidal maniacs, and their experience with a firearm is likely to be no better than that of an experienced civilian.