Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Amazing lack of reading comphrehension

Tennessee has a bill up for hearing that would allow professors to carry guns on campus. Here's what the second paragraph of the article says:

State Rep. Stacey Campfield’s proposal, scheduled for a hearing Wednesday before
a House Judiciary subcommittee, would allow any full-time faculty and staff
member with a valid permit to bring a handgun onto their public college campus.


Got that? "full time faculty and staff member with a valid permit." Not really a difficult concept, not complicated with legalese, pretty simple use of words.

So, for whatever self-hating masochistic reasons, I have to go and read the comments. Lets have a look-see, shall we?

I am trained to take out an armed person, others are not. There will be an
accident of the worse magnitude if bill is passed. College students are not
trained in armed combat, how to space themselves, how to ensure that they only
shoot the intended target, how to shoot under pressure, when to shoot and not to
shoot.

Every student should be issued an .44 Mag during registration. It would
require only a small increase in tuition fees but think of the safety aspect.
Wonderful idea!!!

I just see alot more dead kids and teachers in our future because guns
are being made so accessible to be everywhere. There'll be shootings over
parking places, looking at girlfriends' wrong, or other minor petty
annoyances.

Now this is one of the most stupid things I have heard in a while,
armed (KIDS) on our colleges campus. just what's with you people

Look kids are going to get guns anyway. It is irresponsible not to
teach them how to protect themselves while using guns.

Seriously now:Have you ever BEEN to college? Lived in a dorm? Do you
really think it's a good idea to arm everyone there? Do you know how many kids
are drinking
? How much emotion? How many breakups? Fist fights? Kids living for the first time away from the authority they've had all their lives: their
parents? Do we really want them to have deadly weapons, too? Do you REALLY think that gun crime and injury would go DOWN if you gave all the college students guns? Are you INSANE?
That's out of 36 comments (and there are several others that seriously imply, but don't specifically state, that they understood it to apply to college students (who are not, for the record, "kids", particularly if they have carry permits, which are issued over age 21)).

Anyhow, I support the measure, but doubt it would do a lick of good, given that maybe2 professors on campus would actually make use of it. But hey, if some nut-job comes in blazing, I'd sure hope that I was in one of those professors' classrooms.

By the way, I had the opportunity to meet Stacey Campfield (the proponent of this bill) when he graciously came to speak at an event sponsored by our Federalist Society. I was really impressed with his willingness to discuss and debate his ideas, and he was more than happy to invite tough questions from the students. He is known for being a bit on the extra-conservative side, so a few of the more liberal students discussed staging a protest. Notice that I say discussed; they didn't actually do it, nor did they even bother to show up to ask him questions or see what he had to say.