Friday, October 16, 2015

The great experiment is underway: will allowing guns on campus end the slaughter?

Wisconsin seems to be poised as the next state to give it a go:
http://chronicle.com/article/How-Guns-on-Campus-Became-a/233786?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&elq=e80c17f9c5cf4419ad09a47dedc98eaf&elqCampaignId=1624&elqaid=6592&elqat=1&elqTrackId=3f9e39d7d12b4a2a9ca4de8efa1605fa


While, as they say, the jury is still out, the National Review has just posted an article arguing that concealed-carry licensees are less likely to commit a crime than even police officers on average.  The article adds ten instances in which such citizens did indeed prevent a potential mass shooting.

The prestigious Washington Post is the source of this latter claim.

In my hate-crimes class last night, most students seemed skeptical about this idea as a solution.  And at first blush "The solution to bad guns is more guns" hardly seems equivalent to "The solution to bad speech is more speech."  

Still, one of the central ideas of federalism is that every state is a little laboratory where the citizens can experiment with new, even radical, ideas.

As one of my students noted last night, there are just so many guns in this country now that you will never be able to get rid of them.  And, so, to borrow another cliche, perhaps fighting fire with fire (no pun intended) is the best way our of our present quagmire involving the nuts and the lonewolves with their guns.

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