Tulsa World editorial: Should the state allow concealed guns on college campuses? No

[Dale00]

Like Mr. Robinson, I too am concerned about suicide on our public college campuses. We need to be doing more to prevent loss of life. I suggest that tall campus buildings be torn down and students be prohibited from driving cars. Life is precious and these two other obvious dangers should be eliminated.

It should be common sense to anyone that guns, tall buildings and powerful automobiles are bad and many college students are mentally unbalanced. I've known some mentally unstable college students and you have too, I bet. Lets ban all three of these dangers for our kids. Even though they are 21 they aren't really adults now are they? Should you need further evidence, just look at the sharp increase in students committing suicide in Utah after concealed carry was allowed on college campuses there. I rest my case.

 

[MCVetSteve]

Like Mr. Robinson, I too am concerned about suicide on our public college campuses. We need to be doing more to prevent loss of life. I suggest that tall campus buildings be torn down and students be prohibited from driving cars. Life is precious and these two other obvious dangers should be eliminated.

It should be common sense to anyone that guns, tall buildings and powerful automobiles are bad and many college students are mentally unbalanced. I've known some mentally unstable college students and you have too, I bet. Lets ban all three of these dangers for our kids. Even though they are 21 they aren't really adults now are they? Should you need further evidence, just look at the sharp increase in students committing suicide in Utah after concealed carry was allowed on college campuses there. I rest my case.

Oooohh.... It's satire. I get it.

 

[Dale00]

Dear Mr. Robinson,

I am very pleased to hear of OSU's support for the Second Amendment and concealed carry in Oklahoma. As for you saying that it is a bad idea on college campuses, I am eager to hear more of your reasons. Perhaps you can present the actual hard facts behind your assertions. In general what is good for the goose is good for the gander. There must be something very unusual about college campuses for something that you support outside of a campus to be bad the instant that one steps across the line onto the campus. What exactly is the difference between colleges and their surrounding communities?

You appear to be arguing that the presence of guns causes increased suicide rates. It is my understanding that those who are suicidal will find a means of accomplishing their goal. Is this incorrect or do guns actually increase the probability of an individual taking their own life?

If we are to believe certain studies coming out of Harvard University, Physicians Against Gun Violence, the CDC and other prominent sources, it appears guns do cause suicide. However the picture is not as clear as they make it to be. Here are some alternative points of view:

Members of the anti-gun public health community have written numerous articles that seek to blame an increase in suicide among young American males upon increased gun availability. They fail to tell their readers that while suicide among American males aged 15 to 24 increased 7.4% during 1980-1990, the increase in England was more than 10 times greater (78%)13, with car exhaust poisoning being the leading method of suicide in a nation where gun ownership is severely restricted.

http://www.nraila.org/news-issues/fact-sheets/1999/suicide-and-firearms.aspx

...from the Times:

"The literature suggests that having a gun in your home to protect your family is like bringing a time bomb into your house," said Dr. Mark Rosenberg, an epidemiologist who helped establish the C.D.C.'s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. "Instead of protecting you, it's more likely to blow up."

First, Dr. Rosenberg should get his nose out of books and step out into life. How is bringing a gun into one's home like bringing in a "ticking time bomb?"

Per GunPolicy.org, privately owned firearms in the United States are estimated at 270 million. Not all those guns are in homes, but tens of millions are. So accepting that there were 20,000 gun-related suicides in 2010, then a mere fraction of a percent (0.000741, if my calculation is correct) of private guns are involved in suicides. That's hardly the "ticking time bomb" that Dr. Rosenberg asserts.

Yet more from Tavernise:

Still, some dispute the link, saying that it does not prove cause and effect, and that other factors, like alcoholism and drug abuse, may be driving the association [to suicide]. Gary Kleck, a professor of criminology at Florida State University in Tallahassee, contends that gun owners may have qualities that make them more susceptible to suicide. They may be more likely to see the world as a hostile place, or to blame themselves when things go wrong, a dark side of self-reliance.

Professor Kleck is long on speculation (or, at least, as reported by Tavernise). Kleck paints with a broad brush. Millions of gun owners are sportsmen. Overwhelmingly, those millions who own guns for self-defense aren't peeking from behind their living room curtains, shotguns or handguns at the ready, waiting for some kid in a hoodie to step onto their lawns. As to the gun suicides blaming "themselves when things go wrong," well, self-blame is most likely a root cause in many suicides -- self-blame or self-pity.

What say you, professor, about non-gun-related suicides -- just thrill seekers? And if there's a "dark side" to self-reliance (a slap at gun owners' individualism, no doubt), there's no dark side to dependence? One would think that powerlessness and dependency are key factors in driving a person to suicide. Empowered people rarely kill themselves -- isn't that fair to say?

Finally, this bit of shaky reasoning in response to the argument that if guns are taken away wouldn't people find other ways to kill themselves:

"Yes, many may find another method," said Catherine Barber, director of the Harvard center's Means Matter public health education campaign, "but will it kill them?"

Citing statistics from emergency rooms and death certificates, she said, "Nearly everything they substitute will have lower odds of killing them, sometimes dramatically so."

Nearly everything? Barber pays short-shrift to the human capacity to problem-solve, and she doesn't factor in human ingenuity.

Anyone driven or desperate enough to kill himself can concoct a plethora of means for snuffing out his life. Say, stepping onto a busy road or highway. Deer and dogs can testify to the lethality of a semi bearing down on one of their own at 70 mph. Or leaping from a not-so-tall building or bridge. Or jumping on train tracks as the sound of a train whistle grows louder. Or hanging oneself -- a time-tested method of suicide. Or opening up one's veins in a tub of hot water (a favorite of ancient Romans). On and on...

We're not likely to read a front-page story in the New York Times about how guns save people's lives. Here's one such story. Just Google "How a gun saved my life." There are many stories of guns saving innocent lives.

But none worth featuring at the New York Times.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/02/guns_suicide_and_the_new_york_times.html#ixzz3CJlxQ24M
Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook

http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/02/guns_suicide_and_the_new_york_times.html

***

Source Study: http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf

The highly debated issue of suicide was explored as well. The World Health Organization ascertains, “The easy availability of firearms has been associated with higher firearm mortality rates.” While this is true, removing the firearm does not remove the suicide risk. The study points out that, “The evidence, however, indicates that denying one particular means to people who are motivated to commit suicide by social, economic, cultural, or other circumstances simply pushes them to some other means,” concluding that there is “no social benefit in decreasing the availability of guns if the result is only to increase the use of other means of suicide and murder, more or less resulting in the same amount of death.”

http://www.guns.com/2013/08/30/harvard-study-concludes-gun-control-prevent-murders-violent-crime/

 

[nofearfactor]

When I was at NEO in Miami in 1977-78 we had enough guns in our dorms to start a small war! The administration knew it. Was there ever any trouble? NEVER!

3rd floor Russell...

 

[Fredkrueger100]

Guns have been a staple of OU for years. Who can forget Buster Rhymes shooting an uzi off a balcony? Why shouldn't students be able to carry? Boren and the rest are idiots. Just more dumb liberal thinking.

 

[MCVetSteve]

Guns have been a staple of OU for years. Who can forget Buster Rhymes shooting an uzi off a balcony? Why shouldn't students be able to carry? Boren and the rest are idiots. Just more dumb liberal thinking.

Was this an actual Uzi, or some other kind of fully automatic machine pistol? Was this person a student at OU? Was this person 21 and licensed to carry concealed? Find me a statistic in which a student... no, a statistic in which any person who was licensed to carry violated the law while doing so upon the campus at OU? Didn't find any? Ok, now search for statistics in which a licensed person was the victim of a crime. Find anything? Not sure you would, as I'm not certain whether or not an LEO would ask the victim of a crime whether or not they were licensed to carry elsewhere. A research point perhaps. I'll consult OUPD tomorrow

 

[MCVetSteve]

And to address this before anyone else does, my focus with that line of questions was so narrow only because my goal is just as narrow. My goal is not to allow every 18 year old living in the dorms to have a handgun on campus, my goal is to simply allow those who are licensed to carry nearly everywhere else in the state to continue to carry onto a college campus. Which is public property, with no real security measures to speak of.

 

[Poke78]

And to address this before anyone else does, my focus with that line of questions was so narrow only because my goal is just as narrow. My goal is not to allow every 18 year old living in the dorms to have a handgun on campus, my goal is to simply allow those who are licensed to carry nearly everywhere else in the state to continue to carry onto a college campus. Which is public property, with no real security measures to speak of.

But those points are exactly the ones the colleges and the media will demagogue in order to twist the proposal into a pretzel. Clear-headed individuals can easily understand your point and ultimate goal. The most affected group are those employed by colleges and the part-time adult students taking evening classes.

 

[MCVetSteve]

Exactly, thank you.

 

[Chris Lang]

Common sense says we must protect our children. Guns on campus is not keeping them safe. Just look at the shootings that have happened on campus. Allowing everyone to carry a gun is just asking for trouble. We have campus police to maintain the safety

.

Hmmm. I don't know but, If I were a potential "active shooter", I would think twice about going on my shooting spree at a university that allows concealed carry. I may get my ass shot!

How many "shooting sprees" have you heard about at a gun show?