IN DUBLIN on Jan. 28, Maeve and Brendan were sitting down to breakfast and The Irish Times. "Look at this, Maeve," said Brendan. "In Salt Lake City, they want to have guns at the Olympics and students bringing guns to school. Can you imagine bringing a gun to university?"
Maeve looked at the article, "University head leads fight to ban guns in class." "It's Utah," she explained. "My nephew lives there, and he says they're away in the head, even for Americans."
Maeve and Brendan may be imaginary, but unfortunately, Utah's rabidly pro-gun policy is all too real. Firearms do not belong in schools, and for Utah to demand that administrators permit them is going too far.
Though several newspapers are trying to be balanced and fair in covering the issue, people who want to carry concealed weapons in schools, day-care centers, state government offices, hospitals and churches are taking such an extreme position. They inevitably sound like lunatics.
|
Brendan continued reading. "I know the Americans are gun-mad, but why do they need pistols to watch ice skating? Some legislative lobbyist for the Gun Owners of Utah, he says here, 'Delta Centre is in defiance of our law right now.' Are they afraid the wee girls will come after them?"
"This fellow Winton Aposhian says, 'We'll deal with them next after we're done with the universities.' Ach, and him carrying a 40-calibre baby Glock. I'd not want him to be saying he'd be 'dealing' with me."
Bernard Machen, president of the University of Utah, is one of the people with whom the gun lobby must deal. He continues to fight the state's requirement that he allow guns into classrooms, even as the attorney general and legislature threaten fines and lawsuits for failure to comply ("Utah Colleges Fight to Keep Weapons Out," New York Times, Jan. 24).
Machen has a difficult battle before him. When Dick Cheney visited the University of Utah last year, some people wanted to bring firearms into a room with the Vice President of the United States, but the university - and the Secret Service - quashed the idea.
Students should feel that safe all the time, not just when Cheney is around. As Machen says, "Classrooms, libraries, dormitories and cafeterias are no place for lethal weapons."
Even people who normally support the right to carry firearms find the idea of guns in classrooms disturbing. A Jan. 13 Deseret News poll found that nearly two-thirds of Utah's residents favor banning guns from schools and day care centers. University of Utah trustee and former Republican Sen. Jake Garn favors keeping the ban because "students and teachers must feel that classrooms are havens of learning and not a potential firing range."
Indeed, educational institutions already are too much like firing ranges. At a disciplinary hearing in 1993 at Weber State University, a student opened fire with two loaded pistols, injuring three people before a police officer killed him. In January, the Appalachian School of Law in Grundy, Va. lost its dean, a professor and a student after a failing student went on a shooting rampage.
Still, some students think they need to bear arms on campus. Third-year Utah law student Matt Boyden claims, "It's a two-edged sword. From his [Machen's] perspective, he thinks if professors or students knew there were students who were concealing firearms, they might not be at liberty to speak freely. But the Catch-22 is, those students who carry may feel like they can't speak freely if you take away the power to defend themselves" ("Utah Gun Packers Don't Leave Home Without It," Los Angeles Times, Feb. 10).
If Boyden really thinks that he cannot defend his arguments except with a handgun, he should be focusing on his studying and ignore political issues.
Aposhian calls the worries about academic freedom "pathetic." "They're saying if I disagree with someone they're afraid I'm going to shoot them. Well guess what: There are small people who may be afraid of football players beating them up, but we don't ban football players from the classroom."
The "heat of the moment" defense enables felons to receive a lesser sentence in murder trials. It evinces the justice system's recognition that sane people who commit wrongful acts without thinking ahead deserve less punishment than someone who coldly planned out the crime.
If guns are banned, mentally disturbed students or forward-thinking criminals may bring guns into classrooms nonetheless, and they may kill others. However, a gun ban does prevent "heat of the moment" crimes that occur only when the tool of injury is close at hand.
In a classroom, the liberal quarterback may become enraged by the ideas of a small conservative, and might try to do him a physical injury. But if the player didn't bring a gun, because he didn't plan to shoot anyone, two harms are avoided. He will not be able to shoot the offender - though the conservative should start running - and he will not hurt any innocent bystanders.
Gun advocates like a scenario in which, if the player whipped out a handgun, every other student could pull out their weapons. There would be a re-enactment of the Last Stand at the O.K. Classroom; nothing safer than more flying bullets.
Maeve and Brendan do not exist, but their bewilderment at the actions of Utah's state government is the only sane reaction one can have. Hopefully University of Utah President Machen will prevail, lest Cheney be forced to purchase a bulletproof vest before his next visit to a Utah college.
(Pallavi Guniganti's column appeared Tuesdays in The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at pguniganti@cavalierdaily.com.)
Read More
PARTING SHOT: Sometimes it’s okay to fake a smile
By Alexandra Holmes | 5 hours agoI surrounded myself with people who were so enthusiastic about the University and its potential, that after a while, it was impossible not to feel their passion and their convictions rub off on me.
PARTING SHOT: Girl, what did you expect?
By Cecy Juárez | YesterdayAdvocate for yourself unabashedly, even and especially when you feel like you don’t belong.
PARTING SHOT: Revisiting old comments
By Claire DiLorenzo | YesterdayIn retirement, I am also trying not to be hard on myself — I don’t have to hold onto all the mistakes that I made as an editor.
