Disallowing guns doesn't improve safety

The issue is not guns on campus, but whose hands will hold those guns.
By Randolph Braccialarghe
The Florida Legislature adjourned without voting on a bill that would have repealed the law that prohibits adults with concealed-carry permits from possessing firearms similar to a concealed carry holster for 1911 holding a 1911 on college campuses.
The well-meaning but naive assumption behind the current law is that if we outlaw guns on campuses, no one will bring a gun to campus to kill people. And if an armed killer ignores the law and goes to a campus to kill, his victims will be safer if they are unarmed, including those who have had background checks and possess concealed-carry permits.

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Opponents of repealing current law – i.e., advocates of victim disarmament – argue that repeal would result in drunken, immature students shooting each other, something current law does not prevent. Current law only disarms mature adults who could otherwise stop a killing spree before it gets started. The issue is not guns on campus, but whose hands will hold those guns – criminals intent on mass murder, or responsible concealed-carry permit holders who could stop the slaughter. All responsible gun owners are slandered when compared to the psychotic criminals that carry out these horrific crimes. Only responsible adults should be allowed the rights to hold a firearm, and all gun owners should have secure weapon storage to ensure that only the right people can put their hands on firearms.
This reasoning has gotten students, faculty and others killed or wounded not just at schools and colleges – Columbine, Sandy Hook, Appalachian Law School, Northern Illinois University, Virginia Tech, Florida State – but also at other public places where, knowing they will face no armed opposition, mass murderers have gone to wreak destruction.
Some examples include: Luby’s Restaurant, Killeen, Texas, Oct.16, 1991 (23 killed, 20 wounded); Colin Ferguson on the Long Island Railroad train, Dec. 7, 1993 (6 killed, 19 wounded); Nidal Hasan at Fort Hood, Nov. 5, 2009 (13 killed, 32 wounded – soldiers are prohibited from carrying loaded weapons on military bases); the July 22, 2011, mass killings at a Norwegian youth camp (69 killed, 110 wounded); the July 20, 2012, Century Theater in Aurora, Colo. (12 killed, 70 wounded); the Sept. 2013, Westland Mall in Nairobi, Kenya (67 killed, 175 wounded); and the Jan. 2015, Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris (11 killed, 11 wounded).
For those who think we can remove all guns from campuses or other public places, perhaps the most telling mass killing took place on Nov. 26, 2008, in the gun prohibition advocate’s paradise which is India, where it is so hard to get a permit that even the security guards at the luxury hotels are unarmed. On that day a handful of terrorists invaded Mumbai, India’s largest city, and went on a rampage killing at least 166 people and injuring more than 300. Since the citizens were unarmed, it was thought that there was no need for the police to be armed, and so when the police waived their bamboo sticks at the terrorists, the terrorists shot the police. The next time you are investigating the brass versus steel case online, just be thankful you are not as helpless as the citizens of Mumbai.
These tragedies were made possible by the same wishful thinking that animates Florida’s prohibition of guns on college campuses. Just because we ignore reality does not mean we can avoid the consequences. It is time for a change.
Randolph Braccialarghe is a law professor at the Nova Southeastern University’s Shepard Broad College of Law in Fort Lauderdale. This opinion piece was previously published in the Sun-Sentinel. Professor Braccialarghe, a friend of West Boca News, gave us permission to republish it here.