Hank Erwin seeks to arm responsible, trained college students

From a Tuscaloos News editorial:

… Sen. Hank Irwin, R-Montevallo, says he will try again next year to persuade his colleagues to pass a bill allowing students who meet certain requirements to bring firearms to the campuses of state colleges and universities.

Irwin tried to pass a similar bill in the closing days of this year’s abortive legislative session. It was a direct response to the Virginia Tech shooting, where a student with a history of mental problems killed 32 people and wounded many others before turning the gun on himself.

Like many other pieces of 2007 legislation, Irwin’s bill died. But he says it’s needed to help ensure student safety.

The bill, which he has prefiled for the 2008 session, would allow any student with no prior felony or misdemeanor convictions to bring a gun to campus if he or she secures a gun license, belongs to an ROTC program and completes a gun skills course.

You could guess what the paper’s position is …

Most state campuses ban firearms except for use in ROTC activities – and for good reason. Encouraging more students to pack a gun ups the ante for danger. Not only does it heighten the possibility of an accidental shooting, but it also raises the risk that a person with mental or emotional problems would use a gun.

Irwin, you will recall, made national headlines when he wrote in his column that he believes the hurricanes that hit New Orleans were sent by God to punish people for sin, gambling and wickedness. Lawmakers considering his misguided guns-on-campus bill ought to keep that in mind, as well.

That last part is what I lake to call ad hominem.  The editorial uses a piece of information that is outside the scope of the current discussion as a way of prejudicing the readers against Erwin’s proposal.  Classy.

Their argument is of course absurd.  The school shooting they mentioned (along with every other one I can think of) was perpetrated on a campus that did not allow responsible individuals to carry firearms.  Gun bans do nothing to prevent individuals with criminal intent, regardless of their psychological state, from carrying out acts of considerable violence.  What gun bans do accomplish is that they put law abiding gun owners (and everyone else) in a vulnerable situation where they cannot defend themselves against an attacker.  They can only cower behind thin desks or be lined up against a wall waiting to be executed while waiting for law enforcement officers to arrive – and even then the officers have to enter the area in a deliberate manner.

The weekend’s shootings in Colorado by a young man who violently expressed his disdain for Christianity highlighted how having armed, responsible people on the scene can save lives in an assault situation.  Possibly 100 lives.

Erwin’s bill deserves careful consideration instead of reflexive demagoguery.  His bill only allows for properly trained ROTC students with a clean criminal background to carry on campus.  Think about that.  These are the men and women who, in less than four years, will be in control of far more firepower than any civilian in this country can ever get their hands on.  These are the men and women who will be thrust into high pressure life and death situations in foreign countries.  These are future officers in the world’s most advanced military.  Is the Tuscaloosa News really suggesting that these individuals can’t be trusted to carry around their own privately owned weapons in public for fear of them succumbing to their own incompetence, malice, or emotional fragility?  Give me a break.  Their well oiled, standard response to Erwin’s bill shows that they either didn’t think about how it applies to this specific situation or that they hold the men and women in our military in extremely low regard.  I hope it is the former.

Note: The Tuscaloosa News article misspelled Sen. Hank Erwin’s last name.  I originally did the same (not the first time).  Since corrected.