GUEST COLUMN: A gun in the right hands
When a gun crime is committed, public outrage propels legislators in a race to be first to stiffen gun control and penalties for violent gun crimes, supposing that these measures will reduce gun crimes. Does anyone really believe that Cho Seung Hui cared about gun laws or the consequences of his crimes? Do you really think if he’d been denied a gun due to a background check that he would have thrown up his hands and said, “Oh well, guess I won’t commit this heinous crime after all”?
In case you weren’t aware, anyone, regardless of criminal history, can pick up the newspaper and buy a gun out of the classified ads, no questions asked. And if they couldn’t get a gun, then it would be a knife or a chemical bomb; and criminals would then race to see who can be the most creative with their homemade weapons.
Gun laws only disarm the law abiding public, making it that much safer for a criminal to carry on his travesties without fear of being stopped before reaching his goal. If you don’t believe me, go look up the crime statistics in Australia and compare the numbers before and after their “gun round up” in which they confiscated mostly legal guns to “make their country safer.”
Not long ago, the University of Utah tried to outlaw guns on its campus, which sparked several letters to this newspaper. I remember a comment by one writer, who said, “I can’t see why anybody would need a gun on campus.” The article went on to comment on the fact that we have sufficient campus police.
On April 18, 2007 there was a front-page article in The Utah Statesman reassuring students and faculty that USU has a plan to deal with a situation like the Virginia Tech shooting. What plan would that be, pray tell? How long does it take to get a policeman to my classroom if I call 911? Three minutes? Five minutes? How many lives can a shooter take in three minutes?
I remind you it was an off-duty police officer carrying a concealed weapon that stopped the Trolley Square shooter. Where were the on-duty officers? The hard truth is most crimes of this nature are over in less than two minutes. Could someone please explain to me how our police system is going to put an officer in my classroom in under two minutes?
Not only that, but it must be a police officer willing to wade into a barrage of bullets to stop a criminal bent on destruction. The fact is our finest officers truly doing their best usually arrive just in time to start planning how to deal with the carnage. It’s simply the physics of the speed at which they can travel and the fact they can’t be everywhere at once.
Virginia Tech students testified they heard the shots coming down the hall. Suppose for a moment a student or faculty member carrying a concealed weapon had hidden behind the door and dispatched Cho Seung Hui when he came through. What if someone had at least had some pepper spray and used it when he came through the door? How much lower would be the death toll today? How many innocent lives could have been saved by someone with the courage to defend their fellow students?
Sadly, an approach this proactive is ridiculed by our educationally advanced society. In a less passive time in our nation’s history, a time when we fought for life, liberty and property, carrying a weapon for protection was expected. I am not comfortable trusting my life or that of my wife and children to anyone else. My advice is if you love life, don’t depend on someone else to preserve it for you.
Peculiar to me is how we rush to patch up the problem instead of addressing the root causes. Everyone wants to talk about more legislation and more gun control, but no one wants to talk about what kind of family Cho Seung Hui came from, what abuse he was subjected to, nor what influences he had as a child. What if we talked about how many violent video games we as a society play?
Let’s talk about how much graphic violence involving shootings, rape and human dismemberment are portrayed in our most popular films. Let’s talk about how much pornography of a graphic and often violent nature is viewed on the Internet, and by what percentage of the male student body of this university. Let’s study the effect of media on the making of violent criminals. Let’s talk about how many more lives are taken by drunk drivers than are taken by gun crime perpetrators: and why is it that when an SUV full of drunk teenagers crosses the center line and kills not only them but those in the oncoming lane that legislators don’t rush to reinstate alcohol prohibition?
Why doesn’t the family of the survivors sue the vehicle manufacturers for making such a dangerous instrument of death, like they sue gun manufacturers after a gun crime? Where is the public outrage over alcohol and breaking the speed limit? No, we can’t talk about these things. The fact is, we as a society like these root causes. We don’t want them to go away. We, as a society, like our alcohol and pornography. We like our hours of violent video games, our horror movies and music depicting the killing of police officers and others. In fact, it’s such a taboo to discuss these social issues that this letter would never be printed in most newspapers. Isn’t it time we individually and collectively wake up and examine our own hypocrisy?
John Balentine is a student in the College of Natural Resources. Comments can be sent to jbalentine@cc.usu.edu.