Stupid Reality

Just when you thought things couldn’t get any more stupiderer, a recent US university massacre has apparently triggered a push for more guns on the campus:

IN WHAT seems a distinctly American response to a distinctly American problem, last week’s Illinois university shooting appears only to have spurred a push to allow students to carry guns.

An internet-based lobby, Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, wants lawmakers to overrule university boards that ban guns on campus, so that staff and students could arm themselves against mass killers.

I am literally speechless. (Lucky I can still type.) Where do you start with insane troll logic like this?

A South Dakota state politician, Tom Brunner, has vowed to re-introduce a failed bill that would allow guns to be carried onto university grounds.
Mr Brunner argues that if people were mature and responsible enough to vote, they should not be left “disarmed and defenceless” on college campuses.

Seriously? Has he seen some of the cretins that are eligible to vote? I would feel safer if some of them weren’t allowed to reproduce let alone have control of a semi automatic ranged weapon.

A gun control advocate, Paul Hemke, said last week’s tragedy was the sixth such shooting in the US in the past fortnight, and permitting guns into a volatile environment was not a solution.”Adding more guns into the dorm rooms, into the bars with a group of students who drink a lot, have tensions, fights with their girlfriends, that’s just going to cause more violence,” Mr Hemke, of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence told Fox television.

Well, sure - if you want to bring logic into the situation. One would presume that the lunatics who carry out these massacres have to circumvent some form of security (which may or may not be adequate) and that any such security becomes inherently harder to enforce if people are actually allowed to carry around hidden firearms. A Students for Concealed Carry on Campus (SCCC) spokesman counters this argument:

Mr Lewis disputes that more guns on campus would mean more risk. Mr Lewis is not dissuaded by a 2002 episode in which a Gulf War veteran, who was licensed to carry a concealed weapon, killed three people, including two professors at the University of Arizona because he was failing a nursing course.

“A 1997 FBI study found that most real-world shoot-outs last less than 10 seconds and take place at close range,” he said.

“You don’t have to be a crack shot. I fail to see how five to 10 seconds of exchanged fire at close range will result in anything worse.”

He fails to see how 10 seconds of exchanged fire with ten guns could result in a worse outcome than with one gun? Is he stupid? Well, gee let me think, it could be anything up to ten times worse.

Innocent bystanders have been hurt and killed accidentally in many cases of police intervention, and they are specifically trained to handle these kind of situations. Giving people guns might give them the ability to defend themselves, but it does not automatically endow the bearer with the judgment to do so safely or effectively.