REALITY CHECK
(In response to Emilie Eaton’s Oct. 10 column, “Guns on campus isn’t ‘automatic.’”)
Emilie Eaton displays a certain ignorance on the topic of firearms, but writes against them nevertheless.
Her arguments are purely theoretical and do not line up with my experience of reality. I am tempted to question whether, in fact, Eaton knows any gun owners.
Eaton writes that firearms will transform a "safe learning environment" into a "hostile, unfriendly setting." She does not clarify just how they will accomplish this.
Living in Arizona, it is difficult to walk down the street without passing half a dozen gun owners, yet I never feel threatened by what these mentally sound adults may have in their pockets.
Phrases like "hostile, unfriendly setting" are absurd exaggerations.
The writer goes on: "To think that college students are of an age to protect themselves, let alone are competent using firearms in the heat of the moment, is foolish."
She is apparently envisioning some bloody shootout, bullets flying; yet in fact, gun owners take pride in their abilities.
I do not know a single person who owns a firearm but cannot use it. Has the author ever actually seen someone fire a gun?
The level of caution practiced by gun owners has consistently surprised me. Even the few times I've been to a shooting range, unused weapons are first unloaded, then locked back and pointed downrange.
Is the columnist picturing a world where untrained juveniles are forced to carry, or can she really believe that gun owners are careless?
David McDevitt
Undergraduate
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