Students for Concealed Carry on Campus (member not shown) launched a protest today, attending classes with empty holsters. Only, the press release doesn’t say whether the protesters are concealing those empty holsters. Which would make it a pretty weak protest. But apt. Anyway, the protest continues until Wednesday. ‘Cause the org don’t get no respect—as SCCC spinmeister David Burnett writes in the official press release. “In Pennsylvania, one college banned SCCC member Christine Brashier from handing out fliers about the group, stating, ‘You may want to discuss this topic but the college does not, and you cannot make us.'” And I may want the SCCC to tell which college that would be so I can get an official comment, but there’s no phone number on the release so I can’t make them. “Another college in Texas tried to block students from wearing the symbolic empty holsters on campus until a federal judge ruled that their ban violated the First Amendment.” More specifically . . . .
A recent decision at Colorado State University overturned a long-standing policy that allowed concealed carry, despite the fact that crime on campus decreased rapidly since allowing concealed carry on campus, and no problems were reported among permit holders. The ban was opposed by students, Student Government, and local law enforcement.
Nice work Dave, implying that the majority of students at CSU were standing besides you on this one. And I’d tone the rhetoric a notch, what with the mainstream media meme that Second Amendment rights protesters are proto-terrorists. Read this from that perspective.
“Colleges aren’t content to ban the right to self-defense anymore,” said David Burnett, a spokesman for SCCC. “Now they’re trying to suspend the right to freedom of speech. They want to silence us and hope we’ll go away. It’s outrageous and our membership cares too much about self defense to remain silent.”
Credit where credit’s due: the SCCC then makes its case far more effectively (i.e. practically) than any other gun rights’ organization I can name.
The group was formed shortly after the Virginia Tech shooting, and advocates that persons with state-issued permits be allowed to carry concealed handguns on college grounds.
“Compulsory defenselessness doesn’t make students safer, it makes them less safe,” said Burnett. “A piece of paper taped to the door saying guns are against the rules has yet to stop a criminal, whether a mass shooter or an armed rapist. It merely assures the criminal that victims are incapable of effective resistance. There are no security checkpoints or metal detectors to pass through in order to enter a college campus and absolutely no way for colleges to control what a criminal brings on campus. Until they can take responsibility for our safety and guarantee our protection, colleges can’t be allowed to deny us the right to self-defense.”
Not that IS a good point. One that TTAG has made before.
