By Corey Cagle
The Cardinal called attention to an ongoing and serious problem at U of L a few weeks ago: the relatively high amount of crime on and around the school’s campuses. Since I first started at U of L, I have consistently received more crime alerts than homework assignments each semester. Liz identified the reason for this when she said, “… [W]e’re easy targets, college students are more vulnerable.” It is not difficult to understand why this is the case.
Sadly, the University’s own deliberate policies have created an entire campus of potential victims; a veritable gold mine for petty thieves, would-be murderers and other unsavory characters. What policy, you may ask, could create such a playground for society’s malcontents? Quite simply, I am talking about the University’s prohibition on carrying deadly weapons on campus. This policy is based on fear, not facts, and promotes, rather than curtails, crime.
If you want to rob someone, your ideal victim needs to meet three basic criteria: first, they need to be physically weak; second, they need to be isolated; finally–and above all else!–they must be unarmed. Clearly, from a criminal’s perspective, a “Gun-Free” college campus would make for ripe hunting grounds. The majority of college students are females, generally considered the physically weaker gender; students routinely walk alone to their cars, especially at night; most fortuitously, all of them are prohibited from carrying anything with which to defend themselves! It’ll be like shooting fish in a barrel!
Now imagine the effect on the criminal mind if a sizeable portion of those college students are armed.
“But,” I can hear some of you saying, “if students are armed, wouldn’t we have more gun violence, perhaps school shootings?”
Consider this: last year, an armed woman was held hostages at gunpoint right here at U of L. In 1997, three high school girls were killed by a gunman in Paducah, Ky. Both of these crimes occurred on so-called “Gun-Free” campuses. How many lives could have been saved by a student or teacher with the means and will to stop this sort of evil in it’s tracks?
Criminals, by definition, aren’t going to let a little thing like the law, or school policy, get in their way. The brightest and shiniest of door stickers cannot keep armed criminals with dark intentions out of our schools. Anti-gun policies only ensure that law-abiding citizens are stripped of the best means of self-defense. U of L desperately needs to change its ill-conceived gun policy.
Let’s all hope it doesn’t take a Virginia Tech-style tragedy to make them realize it.
