Jed Pressgrove is a graduate student in sociology. He can be contacted at [email protected].A few ideas behind the recent Empty Holster Protest are based on questionable assumptions.
For reference, the protest involved students wearing empty gun holsters in silence on campuses across the nation. In short, the protestors support the idea of people carrying concealed guns on campuses – as long as the people have permits.
In Friday’s edition of The Reflector, Mark Cooper, a member of Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, said his group also wants students, faculty and guests to have the right to store guns in their automobiles. The logic is that a person’s vehicle is an extension of his home.
Unless I’m overlooking a legal term I can’t find, vehicles are used for getting from one point to the next. “Home” typically entails a structure or environment that stays in one place. Practically speaking, a home is a place where someone dwells a great deal (and traveling doesn’t equal dwelling).
Therefore, to be consistent with our very language, Cooper should believe that only those who live in their vehicles extensively should have the right to store weapons within. Otherwise, the argument doesn’t make any sense and is too abstract for proper lawmaking.
But at least the group’s main idea is not plagued by improper use of language. The group members simply want legal concealed weapons so that permitted shooters may combat possible threats to human life.
This protest came at an opportune time. The numerous killings at Virginia Tech earlier this year give the protestors a chance to exploit people’s fear and emotions. At least the protest itself was silent and known about beforehand.
Admittedly, there is some truth to the beliefs of the group. Yes, we are not totally safe right now. Yes, lives could have been saved at Virginia Tech if an armed individual was in the building.
But other problems exist within these pro-gun arguments to render the ultimate answer to this safety issue unclear. For example, some people against concealed weapons on campus would argue that individuals with concealed guns might snap and create more violent incidents. Cooper correctly states that such individuals are far less likely to commit violent crimes than those who do not have gun permits.
Yet this fact doesn’t address a mathematical issue. First, college students, on average, are already not as likely to commit violent crimes with guns, even on campuses.
However, because we have had many colleges with many types of people in the past few decades, we have observed incidents where college students have killed others with guns on campuses simply because of a small probability.
Now, let’s take this logic a step further. People who have gun permits are not as likely to commit violent crimes with guns. But a few permitted people still commit violent crimes. Therefore, if we increase the number of concealed gun carriers on campuses, one of these people may indeed commit violent crimes against students, faculty or staff.
The point is we don’t have certainty in this case. We only have probability.
Another counterargument to the concealed-firearms-on-campus stance is that the learning environment of the campus may suffer because of the sight of more people carrying guns.
Rightfully, the SCCC Web site rejects this argument, pointing out that “concealed” means just that.
At the same time, the group is resting on yet another assumption. Maybe people would never see the guns, but the knowledge that some students are allowed to carry firearms may still disrupt the learning environment of a campus to a certain degree.
That is, just because someone has a permit doesn’t mean people are willing to trust this gun owner. Personally, there aren’t many regular American citizens that I trust with firearms, especially in relation to my personal safety.
In closing, all I’m asking for is a little honesty. The group should be more forthcoming about the logical holes in the aforementioned assumptions. This argument is entirely reasonable; after all, we are talking about people’s lives in an educational setting.