While I do support BG Undead in their plight, I have no intention of contributing to an already repetitive debate.
What I do want to point out is that one of the earliest premises – that this debate is in any way about the safety of students – is completely absurd.
I’m scared of guns. I go shooting with my father every month or two and am aware every moment what would happen if something went wrong.
But I also noticed that a gun in its holster, as worn by store owners and some patrons, bothers me no more than seeing a cop with a gun.
Obviously, there is a huge difference between a cop and a gun store owner, but what I’m proposing is that the gun itself is not what’s scary. I don’t fear guns because I think one will magically fly out of the holster and start tracking me across the room, but because I fear accidents – something only dangerous with the real deal.
During the debate I promised not to cover, someone responded to an article about carrying Nerf guns on campus by saying that, should a shooting occur at the University, we would feel somehow responsible for having allowed toys on campus.
Unless our supposed shooter had a toy anxiety that led to a psychotic break, this and any other claim regarding safety is laughable. So let’s take this on a different track.
Under what circumstances would you kill another person?
I genuinely want you to consider this.
Would you, regardless of how much you drank, ever kill someone in a bar fight? Over a girlfriend or boyfriend?
I suspect that the answer is a resounding “no.” Personally, I believe I am capable of killing only to protect myself and those I love.
The purpose of this rather macabre question is to bring to light something that has bothered me since the Columbine shooting.
In discussions and in media coverage we try to sympathize with shooters. We ask “were there warning signs?” or “was anyone paying attention?” and “could this have been avoided?”
We seem to think that if someone had just given the person in question a hug or a pat on the back, then senseless bloodshed could have been avoided. And I might even agree, were these simple suicides.
But my sympathy is cut short when an individual decides that their pain must be executed on others.
My point is this: Those who commit murder are almost by definition inhuman. If you took my earlier question seriously, you probably reached a conclusion that killing is either completely beyond you or a last resort.
I could mandate that every student wear a loaded firearm from sunrise to sunset, and I suspect the guns would never leave their holsters. Anyone who has fired a gun, or even held a gun, knows full well their destructive power, and that knowledge is pervasive.
Trying to remove guns from campuses and communities is the wrong answer to the wrong question. (Trying to remove anything gun-esque feels like being trapped in a bad parody of “Sliders” or “Saturday Night Live.”)
The wrong answer is our fear of guns. The extension of this paranoia to toys – even Airsoft guns designed to look real – should be a potent rebuke to our community for irrational fear and panic mongering.
The wrong question, therefore, is, “how do we keep guns off campus?”
Concealed carry and Second Amendment rights debates still thrive. After the apparent success of gun restrictions in NYC and the abysmal failure of extreme restrictions in DC, both sides are (pun fully intended) locked and loaded with years worth of filibustering bullet points.
The right question is “what kind of person is capable of murder?”
The resulting thought experiment takes philosophers into such a twisted realm that many are tempted to label crime a form of disease – no fit person could conceive of such a violation of another human being.
This is why people like me still embrace the death penalty. In cases of theft or assault we can fantasize about justifications; desperation brought about by extreme poverty, emotional crises, etc.
But rape and murder hold a special place, as there is no explanation, no justification for such actions, and I am disgusted that we treat shooters like victims. I don’t even consider them human.
So enjoy the game, take comfort in being surrounded by good-natured humans who are willing to get everything they can out of life.
And please, for the sake of public sanity, stop crying wolf. Our school’s paranoia is insulting to those who actually fell victim to these monsters.