March 2008
The Hallowed Halls
Of Learning
Of Learning
David Codrea
These were the words of Brady Center Communications Director Peter Hamm, reacting to Students for Concealed Carry on Campus wearing empty holsters for a week in protest of policies and laws prohibiting firearms on campuses.
Rather than being the bastions of tolerance and diversity they portray themselves as, our institutions of higher learning have proven themselves rigidly anti-defense to the point of hysteria. Dr. Patricia Telles-Irvin, Vice President for Student Affairs at the University of Florida, issued a memorandum about the protest advising “if any faculty member or student feels genuinely threatened, they should feel free to call the University Police Department.”
If they feel that strongly about empty holsters, what are the chances a student’s views on the loaded guns that go in them will be respected?
Meet Hamline University student Troy Scheffler, suspended after replying to an e-mail from Student Affairs offering counseling in the wake of Virginia Tech. His offense? Among other criticisms, stating in no uncertain terms that forced disarmament policies contributed to the problem. Despite their “Freedom of Expression and Inquiry Policy,” the university characterized this as a “threat,” and ordered Scheffler to submit to a “mental health evaluation” before being permitted to return to school.
This hostile fear, what the late, great Col. Jeff Cooper defined as “hoplophobia” (from the Greek hoplon, or weapon), is for the most part, parroted by the student body. Once notorious for dissenting with their elders, they seem now hard-wired to embrace the zero tolerance indoctrination drilled in by lower school systems.
Consider Middle Tennessee State University, where per Tennessean.com, “The student Senate voted down a resolution 22-5 that would have asked school administrators to request changes in state law to allow students, faculty and staff members who have state-issued gun permits to legally carry those weapons at the school.”
While this was happening, the University of Tennessee was appealing a $300,000 judgment for a disabled student attack victim, arguing they had no duty to protect her — in other words, they won’t protect people on their premises and won’t allow them to protect themselves.
But that’s fine with most student editorialists. Here’s a sampling of recent opinion:
“[W]e must stop exploiting the Second Amendment to justify our pathetic, quasi-patriotic, petty imitations of antediluvian, cowboy-esque individualism.” — Inside Vandy, Vanderbilt University.
“Who are we letting own guns, and what is being done to stop these shootings from reoccurring in the future?” — The Badger Herald, University of Wisconsin-Madison (advocating more “civilian” gun control after a sheriff’s deputy went on a shooting rampage).
Still there is hope, as the empty holster protest proves. Groups like Students for Concealed Carry on Campus and Students for the Second Amendment are making inroads. It’s up to us to encourage and nurture such groups, and most of all, to ensure appreciation of the right to keep and bear arms in young people under our influence. Like the song says, “Teach your children well.”
Visit David Codrea’s online journal The War on Guns at waronguns.blogspot.com.
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