Here we go.
Today, we're going to talk about guns on campus. Again.
But instead of griping about good old Senate Bill 1214 and the sheer lunacy of its no-holds-barred concealed-carry ways, we're going to look at a new campus security measure that will actually make a difference in, you know, a good way. Kind of a cool concept, huh?
Along with police departments at our two in-state brethren, UA and NAU, the ASU Police Department will be gun-shy no more. It has recently added four assault-style rifles to its cache — though unfortunately our state is still not loaded enough to actually be fully … well, loaded.
But even with a small number of them, these rifles, which are only to be brought out in extreme situations and even then, placed only in the hands of officers with 40 hours of training, will enable officers to shoot longer distances with better accuracy and ideally make it easier to stop any possible gunmen. As a result, they would be quicker to wholly secure the campus in case of an incident.
Also, as opposed to allowing any 21-year-old capable of clearing the loose permit standards to carry weapons on campus, this new policy actually puts guns in the hands of those who should actually have guns in their hands: police officers. So now we have more effective weapons paired with well-trained officers. This is a big step forward.
And if you still think the only thing that could make this better would be pairing random weapons with mostly lightly trained Average Joes, well, we're probably not going to be friends. Sorry.
At least we can probably agree that this raising of arms has been a longtime coming.
Ever since the Los Angeles Police Department incident in 1997 in which their force was completely overwhelmed by the firepower of a bank robbing duo armed with automatic rifles and full body armor, police departments across the nation have been jumping on the bandwagon of having higher-powered weapons as part of their arsenal.
With the rise in college shootings, it's nice to see this trend starting to reach the university police level. More specifically, it's just nice to see it here at ASU.
Now that the ASU Police Department is armed with assault-style rifles, we have some peace of mind that if, God forbid, a horrific incident took place on this campus, our men and women in navy blue would be even more prepared to undertake a complete and proper response without waiting for the Tempe SWAT team to come help.
Against certain threats, simple handguns only go so far; with the new weapons, ASU Police has more of a fighting chance at overtaking any potential menace.
So thumbs up to our cops as they undertake the task of training and implementing what we only pray turns out to be a safety precaution. We're as glad to see it as we possibly can be … and we're not just saying that because they now have freaking assault-style rifles.
