The whole concept of civilization fascinates me. Think about it. One day, about 7,500 years ago, some folks in the Middle East just decided to plant some seeds in the ground instead of wandering around for food. A precept to this was the mutual understanding that if these people were going to be neighbors, they had to get along. If they kept killing each other, no one would live there. So, they shook hands and human civilization was born.
For the most part, civilizations are fairly, for lack of a better word, civil. I can go almost anywhere in Phoenix without fearing for my safety. But there are times when people don’t live up to their end of deal, like when someone opens fire in a crowded classroom or when people stranded by a hurricane start fighting for resources. In those instances, the concept of civilization has failed.
The funny thing is that you never know when there is going to be a breach in the civilization contract. No one on Virginia Tech’s campus on April 15, 2007, knew there was going to be a shooting the next day, and no one in New Orleans knew on August 29, 2005, that the levees would fail, resulting in mass looting and violence. In both cases, the protection that those people expected to be there was not there.
That is why the right for people to open carry firearms is still relevant to this day, even in a college classroom. The right for someone to adequately defend him or herself in a dangerous situation should trump all others. The right to open carry on campus will not result in more random outbreaks of violence.
On June 26, 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Washington, D.C.’s ban on handguns as unconstitutional. In 2009, for every 100,000 Washingtonians, 683 were victims of violent crime, according to the FBI. In 2009, a full year without the gun ban, the number dropped to 623 per 100,000, almost a 9 percent decrease.
Nor does the right to open carry, on its own, give a person the ability to bring a gun to school. The truth is that anyone who has hands can already bring a gun to class. For all you know, the person sitting next to you could have a gun in his bag.
The moment that the right to open carry is infringed upon is the moment that our own safety rests in the hands of other people, like police officers. Unfortunately, police are only doing a good job until the moment they are unable to deliver protection. In other words, a sense of safety is not the same as actual safety, which can be achieved through two methods: arming yourself or disarming everyone including yourself.
So take your pick. Either give people the right to open carry, or have a screening system on the perimeter of campus. Personally, if I were the victim of a shooting I would feel better knowing that I could have defended myself, as opposed to being the victim of a system that had failed me.
Reach Cullen at cmwheatl@asu.edu