Guns on campus

from TimesDaily.com

College campuses are restricting activities of an advocacy group that wants to let students carry guns on campus.

A freshman at the Community College of Allegheny County near Pittsburgh said a dean recently told her to stop distributing fliers for the group Students for Concealed Carry on Campus.

The dean also told her to destroy the pamphlets she had designed for the group, which has chapters at many colleges across the nation.

“I won’t be forced into silence. I just wanted to start a student organization. I didn’t think it was going to get this much attention,” said the student, Christine Brashier. “It only got this attention because they stopped me. People don’t like to hear about suppression of free speech.”

Places of higher education have reason for concern over the issue of weapons on campus. But Brashier, however misguided her mission may be, has good reason to be upset. Colleges and universities should promote free speech rather than squelch it, even if they don’t agree with the message.

Most colleges do not allow weapons and some states ban students from carrying them on campus. But since April 16, 2007 – when Seung-Hui Cho went on a shooting spree at Virginia Tech University, killing 32 people and injuring 17 before fatally shooting himself – more students have been advocating for the right to bear arms in the classroom.

While some students may be mature enough to responsibly carry a concealed weapon, the late teens and early adulthood are ripe with carelessness, bravado, angst, drugs and alcohol. In fact, science tells us the brains of most males aren’t fully developed until the 20s.

The immaturity of even a few is too much risk for the rest of the student population and faculty.

But that doesn’t mean colleges and universities should silence students who want to carry weapons.

At Tarrant County College in Fort worth, Texas, students have been trying to hold an “empty holster” demonstration in the college’s designated “Free Speech” zone. The college has repeatedly refused to allow the protest, although it has taken place at other campuses nationwide.

College administrators should realize their Free Speech zone is the only casualty at Tarrant. Empty holsters don’t kill people.