Guns On Campus
Two items about guns on campuses caught my attention in the media this month, one impossible to miss, the other buried in the back pages of the Honolulu Star Bulletin.
Sep 20, 2006
The murderous rampage at Montreal's Dawson College that resulted in the death of 18 year-old Anastasia DeSousa brought back haunting memories of L'Ecole Polytechnic and Columbine. The Dawson College shooting made the front page of every newspaper in Canada for days following. Random shootings always rekindled the debate on gun registration in Canada, (as they should), and the question, what if anything could have been done to prevent the cold-blooded murder of an innocent young Canadian?
Secondary to that, academics, psychologists and the general public weighed in heavily on whether or not gaming can be at least partially blamed for violence in our society. (This topic is far to detailed to cover here, but is fodder for a future article).
Whatever side of the gun-registration debate one might find oneself on, I think it is safe to say that the majority of Canadians believe that guns do not belong on campuses.
On this point, Americans differ, as became clear last week when the Utah Supreme Court struck down a ban on guns at the University of Utah. This ban has been in place since the early 1970s. The University of Utah administration refused to lift the ban, choosing to ignore the decision, pending a hearing before the federal courts.
I applaud them for this. There are currently 44,000 souls working, studying and teaching at the University of Utah and I fail to see the need for any of them to be carrying a deadly weapon.
The court disagrees: "Campus officials cannot adopt a policy that runs counter to state law."
The University of Utah maintains that they have to the right to expel anyone from their campus who violates the ban on guns rule, though they are quick to confirm that to date, they have never had to enforce this rule, and let's hope that they never have to.
Lethal weapons do not belong in places of higher education - not in the hands of the good guys or the bad guys. The tragic events that unfolded at Dawson College could only have been avoided if somebody had raised the alarm about the killer's obsession with guns - perhaps his parents or a teacher or a friend. Instead he kept his gun at his side under the eyes of his family and friends. Nobody in his inner circle bothered to report he had an illegal weapon and nobody had the courage to take it away.
And a young girl's life ended almost before it began. Imagine though if all the students, staff and faculty had been armed on that terrible day. Would a gunfight have resulted in more deaths? I think so.
