Gun ban raises risk

I have a job that requires me to visit various courthouses in the region. It is illegal to carry a weapon into a courthouse in Pennsylvania, so each day, I go through a metal detector and my bag is either searched or x-rayed by a sheriff's deputy. You can be sure that inside the courthouse, the only people with firearms are those who are supposed to have them. Similarly, most college campuses have rules prohibiting firearms - IUP is no exception. But there is no mechanism to prevent firearms from being brought onto campus, which makes the rule absurd, worthless and even dangerous.

What we have is an arbitrary area that is designated as "gun-free." There is no wall or fence, x-ray machines, security or metal detectors - no way to keep people from carrying in a weapon. There is no magic that makes guns disappear as you cross the invisible line that demarcates the campus. The only thing that prevents it is respect for the law. This means that the only people carrying firearms on a college campus are those who do not care about the law and, potentially, are set on harming others.

Consider what this means. There are more than 10,000 people walking around campus each day who are all but guaranteed to be defenseless targets for psychos. I have been saying this for years and it took a horrific incident at Virginia Tech to prove me right.

It is completely absurd to ban firearms in an area where there is no mechanism to prevent them from entering. It makes the area more endangered, not less. There are no weapons in the courthouse because the sheriff's department prevents them from entering. There is nothing to prevent people from bringing weapons on campus. Sure we have campus police. They had campus police at Virginia Tech, too. Police are not an effective civilian defense force.

Consider how many police you see in an airport. That is how many it would actually take to protect an area from a psychopath. There are not that many police on our campus. I go entire days without seeing police and that is fine. I do not want to have officers all over the place everyday. But people need protection. I am not willing to accept that Virginia Tech-type shootings happen only once a decade. That is once a decade too only. So as the nation inevitably debates gun control in the coming weeks, remember that it is not fewer that will make us safe, but more.

If there had been a few armed students on Virginia Tech's campus, there might be a lot more living students today. To be certain, not everyone has to carry a weapon. If we were allowed to carry weapons on campus, I still would choose not to. Weapons are expensive and carrying one requires a permit. I also do not know how to shoot a pistol. I tried once and I could not hit the broad side of a barn. But there are lots of people who can hit targets and would choose to carry a weapon. I would feel safer if they did. With some common sense rules, we can all be safer.

There are some reasonable gun-control measures that would make us safer. One would be to force people with a concealed firearm permit to undergo a class that teaches them when it is appropriate to use a firearm and how to fire it safely. Hunters already go through a similar class. Carriers should pass a proficiency test also. I could support things like a limit on purchasing pistols to one-per-month and instant background checks (although these would have had no effect on recent events).

Gun control measures that make us less safe would be those that prohibit weapons in certain areas. We would simply create more areas that hold easy targets. People with permits ought to be able to carry their weapons wherever they go unless there is sufficient security to screen everyone who enters. The places that tend to ban weapons are also at the most risk and need law-abiding citizens to help defend them. Also, banning weapons entirely would be a disaster. Remember that cocaine, heroin and a host of other drugs that are banned are still brought into the U.S. every day from beyond our borders. The only people with these drugs are the people who do not care about the law.

The 2nd Amendment of the U.S. Constitution is supposed to protect our right to protect ourselves. The Pennsylvania Constitution goes even further in Article 1, Section 21, where it states, "The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State shall not be questioned." Arbitrarily banning firearms only makes an area less safe. What we need are more guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens.