During the week of April 21-25, thousands of college students throughout the United States, organized under the banner of Students for Concealed Carry on Campus (SCCC), will attend classes wearing empty holsters in protest of state laws and school policies that stack the odds in favor of dangerous criminals and armed killers by disarming law-abiding citizens licensed to carry concealed handguns virtually everywhere else.
SCCC hosted its first national collegiate Empty Holster Protest during the week of Oct. 22-26, 2007, on the campuses of approximately 125 U.S. colleges and universities. This second Empty Holster Protest will expand upon the concept of the first protest by placing greater emphasis on educating the uninformed. Protesters will focus on sharing the facts of “concealed carry” with students and faculty who may not be aware that concealed carry laws exist or that those laws differ on college campuses from most other locations.
In 39 U.S. states, thousands of college students and faculty “age 21 and above” are licensed to carry concealed handguns throughout their day-to-day lives. And they do so without incident. Numerous studies* by independent researchers and state agencies show that concealed handgun license holders are five times less likely than non-license holders to be arrested for violent crimes. However, despite the absence of any compelling evidence that these licensed individuals would pose any more threat to college campuses than they currently do to office buildings, movie theaters, shopping malls, grocery stores, restaurants, churches, banks, etc., they are prohibited, either by state law or school policy, from carrying their firearms onto most college campuses.
Colorado State University, Blue Ridge Community College (Weyers Cave, Va.) and all nine public colleges in the state of Utah currently allow concealed carry on campus. After a combined total of more than 60 semesters of allowing concealed carry on campus, none of these schools have seen any resulting incidents of gun violence, gun accidents or gun theft.
From assault to rape to mass shootings, college campuses are touched by every type of violent crime imaginable. Labeling an area “gun free” may make some people feel safer, but as the shootings at Virginia Tech and NIU taught us, feeling safe is not the same as being safe. There is a wide discrepancy between the intent of campus gun bans and the actual consequences of such bans. It is this discrepancy to which the student members of SCCC hope their Empty Holster Protest will draw attention. While opponents may argue that guns have no place in institutions of higher learning, SCCC contends that it is the rapes, the assaults and the uncontested, execution-style massacres that have no place in America’s colleges. The students of the Empty Holster Protest respectfully ask that steps be taken to take the advantage away from those who seek to harm the innocent.
For more information, contact Alex Herbert or visit www.ConcealedCampus.com.
*“Crime, Deterrence, and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handguns,” John Lott and David Mustard, Journal of Legal Studies (v.26, no.1, pages 1-68, January 1997); “An Analysis of The Arrest Rate Of Texas Concealed Handgun License Holders as Compared to the Arrest Rate of the Entire Texas Population,” William E. Sturdevant, Sept. 1, 2000; Florida Department of Justice statistics, 1998; Florida Department of State, “Concealed Weapons/Firearms License Statistical Report,” 1998; Texas Department of Public Safety and the U.S. Census Bureau, reported in San Antonio Express-News, September, 2000; Texas Department of Corrections data, 1996-2000, compiled by the Texas State Rifle Association.
Alexander Herbert is a senior forensic chemistry major.
Reader Comments
Well written... expect backlash by Brady Bill fans shortly.
Of the two, which are you:
1. Concealed Carry License Owner
2. Victim
Looking forward to it. It's a sad reality right now that I have the right to defend myself everywhere except my school. Let's see things change.
Also: 1.
I'm sorry but there are just too many idiots out there that I don't trust to carry a gun around everywhere. I'm not worried about someone using it to rob a gas station. Most of us can handle a firearm and be responsible, but it only takes that one idiot who gets pissed at someone and pulls it out and starts shooting, or even worse the guy who tries to defend himself from that guy, shoots and misses and kills someone. Or even worse than that, what happens when someone mistakenly thinks there's a threat to themselves or another individual and they're wrong and kill someone. It's the people trying to do the right thing in protecting themselves that could accidently kill someone else that scares me.
I fully support the second amendment, but I think there should be more education and some strict regulation on firearms before we open things up so everyone can carry a gun whenever. If you need to pass a course to operate a car, a boat, hell even a forklift, you should have to take a class and pass a test (probably even be psychologically evaluated) on how to properly use a firearm in self defense before you're allowed to own one for that reason.
I think if you look at this story in The Baltimore Sun, I think the dangers of when people take the law into their own hands becomes apparent. Imagine if one of these people had had a gun:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/baltimore_city/bal-van0413,0,7630012.story
I'm sorry but there are just too many idiots out there that I don't trust to carry a gun around everywhere. I'm not worried about someone using it to rob a gas station. Most of us can handle a firearm and be responsible, but it only takes that one idiot who gets pissed at someone and pulls it out and starts shooting, or even worse the guy who tries to defend himself from that guy, shoots and misses and kills someone. Or even worse than that, what happens when someone mistakenly thinks there's a threat to themselves or another individual and they're wrong and kill someone. It's the people trying to do the right thing in protecting themselves that could accidently kill someone else that scares me.
I fully support the second amendment, but I think there should be more education and some strict regulation on firearms before we open things up so everyone can carry a gun whenever. If you need to pass a course to operate a car, a boat, hell even a forklift, you should have to take a class and pass a test (probably even be psychologically evaluated) on how to properly use a firearm in self defense before you're allowed to own one for that reason.
I think if you look at this story in The Baltimore Sun, I think the dangers of when people take the law into their own hands becomes apparent. Imagine if one of these people had had a gun:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/baltimore_city/bal-van0413,0,7630012.story
I apologize for the double post, I'm not sure why that happened
The only problem is that idiots are already running around armed. VT and Columbine would not have happened if this was not the case. As for your what if scenario, there are dozens of reported crimes stopped by armed citizens.. usually residence break-ins. http://concealedcarryforum.com/forum/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=18
As for actual crime rates, states with concealed carry laws have seen the crime rates go down. So the "wild west" idea of people shooting their guns in the street is just a straw man theory.
For example, here are some stats on vermont and its quest for concealed carry.
http://www.kc3.com/CCDW_Stats/why_vermont_ccdw.htm
As for your call to take a course, in Ohio you have to:
http://www.ohconcealedcarry.com/
Even if you take the course, you are not automatically blessed with a license... they do deny them. Here is a good reference for the state of Ohio, including a breakdown by county how many licenses are issued and denied.
http://www.ag.state.oh.us/le/prevention/concealcarry/statistics.asp
So you can fret about training, classes, regulations, etc... but the simple fact remains that the honest citizen who jumps through the hoops to get a license won't be pulling a Yosemite Sam in the streets. And the threat of armed criminals will always exist. Look how well the gun ban has worked for England.
Even backwards West Virginia, my homestate, requires a test and basic training. Not only that, but you are making the same argument that everyone made back when Florida was first passing its CCW laws in the 80s. Everyone said it would be the "shootout at the OK corral" with people shooting one another over petty arguments - but the bottom line is that that hasn't happened. In fact,the overwhelming statistics indicate that individuals with concealed carry weapon permits are less likely to be involved in any crime, including violent shootings, with the possible exception of suicide, than anyone else. CCW permit holders are more responsible because of the responsibility their license places on them. They are less likely to commit crimes because if they were criminals, they would not bother getting a permit to carry a concealed handgun.
Another point is that the chances are you've already met many concealed carry permit holders, and in fact you may have met people carrying guns, but you don't know it because they are responsible and they are /concealing/ their handgun. For example, anyone who has met me outside of the University criminal protection zones has met me carrying a handgun.
I think you're missing my point. I don't care about your right to carry a concealed weapon, by all means, please do. I'm referring more to the argument everyone makes that you're either "a. person with gun" or "b. victim." I'm also referring to the nation as a whole, not just Ohio or Ohio University. I think the article I provided clearly shows, as well, the danger present when ordinary citizens excersize vigilante justice and take the law into their own hands. Not only that, but the poor judgement the average citizen shows.
You can't tell me the system is perfected to the point that anyone who applies for this permit and to own a handgun should rightfully have it and will use it appropriately. It's far to easy to get a handgun in many states and many don't require any kind of training afterward.
As for the "overwhelming statistics," those are extremely flawed. Most compare the percentage of victims of violent crimes who have a concealed carry permit to that of the entire population of a state. You're talking about a small group being compared to one hundreds to thousands of times it's size, those numbers aren't comparable. The statistic we should be looking at are how many crimes have been stopped by people with their own weapons not only against themselves, but against others (if we're going to bring the VT and NIU shootings into this).
I said before, I support concealled carry and the second amendment, I just think there needs to be more education, understanding and regulation so the right people have it and not more of the idiots who shouldn't.
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