Students across the country shouldn't be surprised if they see empty gun holsters infiltrating their classes this week. As part of the second "empty holster protest" organized by Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, members are sporting the accessory to symbolize the restrictions institutions place on their right to carry a concealed weapon on campus for self-defense and safety purposes.
Guns to promote safety on campus? While it may seem counterintuitive, growing numbers of students across the country are expressing support for legislation and campus policies that would allow them to carry concealed weapons around their colleges and universities.
SCCC, the largest and most prominent of these groups, is pushing for universities to allow students who have met the proper licensing and registration requirements to carry concealed weapons for personal protection and in order to fight off attackers in campus shootings.
In the wake of shootings at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University, SCCC quickly grew from a Facebook group, created in April 2007 to gauge interest in the cause, to a national organization that now boasts over 25,000 members at dozens of campuses. Ninety percent of its members are students.
Though gun advocates are receiving ample media attention, they have not succeeded in passing legislation to allow students to carry concealed weapons on campus. On Virginia campuses, chapters are pushing for a law that limits the ability of state entities, including the board of a state university, to prohibit concealed handgun permittees from carrying firearms on public property. Utah is the only state that currently allows students to do so.
"When people say 'More guns equals more violence,' they make the terribly insulting assumption that all gun owners commit violence," Jason Blatt, an SCCC spokesman and medical student at the University of North Carolina, wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. "They fail to make the mental distinction between guns owned by good guys and guns owned by bad guys."
Blatt added that use of concealed weapons is most appropriate for personal protection, pointing to high numbers of sex offenses, assaults and violent felonies that take place every year on college campuses.
"Nearly 6,000 a year of our nation's college students are murdered, raped and brutally assaulted," he wrote.
Ken Stanton, head of the Virginia Tech chapter of SCCC, also stressed the different reasons for carrying a concealed weapon, saying some want to "act like cowboys" and provide protection for others in the absence of police presence, while others simply want a weapon for self-defense.
"I'm not even that excited about shooting," he said. "I target shoot for practice on weekends, but other than that it's only for self-defense."
Many members of SCCC, including Stanton and Blatt, believe concealed weapons work as a crime deterrent. The availability of permits for concealed weapons accounts for the drastic drop in crime in American cities over the 1990's, Stanton said. Blatt added that inmate studies that have found that criminals often fear an armed victim more than the police.
The group's recommendations to allow students to carry concealed weapons are not without restrictions. SCCC insists that on-campus firearms holders should be 21 years of age and have no prior criminal record, history of substance abuse or psychiatric problems. However, they also cite research that says that the six states that allow any person over 18 to hold a concealed weapon - Maine, North Dakota, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Montana and Indiana - have some of the nation's lowest crime rates.
Still, the idea of firearms on a college campus makes many uncomfortable.
At a national conference on higher education law sponsored in February by Stetson University and the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators, public safety officials concluded that more guns on college campuses would not lead to greater safety, according to a Feb. 29 article in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Public safety experts told the Chronicle that untrained students could easily misfire weapons or have them stolen by those who wish to harm others.
Testifying before an Arizona Senate committee last month, police chiefs from three public universities in the state opposed a bill that would have allowed concealed carry on campus, arguing that students could interfere with police efforts to respond to shooters in an emergency. The police chiefs noted that law-enforcement agents must complete nine months of gun-related training, while ordinary citizens can obtain a gun permit with only eight hours of training, according to an April 18 article in the Chronicle.
"The group's proposal makes me feel extremely unsafe," said Colleen Devlin, a sophomore at the University of Virginia. "The right to carry does not outweigh the right to safety and security in the classroom."
According to information from the Violence Policy Center, firearms are the second leading cause of death among American ages 15 to 24 after motor vehicle accidents. The U.S. Department of Justice estimated that 66 percent of the 16,137 murders in 2004 were committed with firearms.
