Dartblog

The Dartmouth reported today on new measures taken in the wake of a recent campus shooting at Northern Illinois University that left 5 dead. I have no doubt that the “Light Emitting Diodes cruise lights and warning lights” for S&S vehicles and a modernized PA system are strong steps in the way of protection.

It was later in the article that I started feeling unsafe:

Stephen Kazmierczak of NIU and Seung Hui Cho of Virginia Tech, perpetrators of the recent shootings at these universities, both ordered their weapons online a few days before the respective massacres….

Safety and Security and the Office of Residential Life enforce the College’s firearms policy in an effort to prevent possible violence on campus, according to [director of Safety and Security and College proctor Harry] Kinne and [Dean of Residential Life Martin] Redman.

Although weapons are generally prohibited on campus, ORL and Safety and Security allow certified hunters and Reserve Officers’ Training Corps cadets to store their weapons in a special storage area supervised by Safety and Security, according to Kinne.

Looking at the facts of these two cases, school gun policies did not help and indeed they may have killed. These two campus killers did not follow gun policy. They did not register their weapons with the college, keep them in an approved locker, and my gut tells me that they must have violated a rule or two in shooting people. If someone has a mind to commit mass murder, I somehow do not think they will mind breaking college firearm policy. Where college gun policy does come in is preventing the students that might act, in rational self-defense to disarm and disable campus shooters, from having this capability. If we can’t stop potential killers from getting guns, we should at least give others the opportunity to fight back when killers start shooting.

This is not to say that we should mandate guns in frat basements but if we are serious about protecting students let us take a rational look at our campus gun policy. People who want to kill will always get weapons, let’s ensure that the people who want to stop them do too.

Summing up most colleges’ gun policies and the results they have seen is the bumper sticker slogan that goes, “When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.”