The Debate on Colleges Campuses Should be About Safety, Period

I wonder if the warring camps on both sides of the concealed carry laws on college campuses see the irony of the recent attack at the University of Texas. The knife-wielding assailant was neither carrying a gun nor could he have been stopped by a firearm before doing irreparable damage.

The ugly truth is that when someone wants to do harm to someone else, they will find a way. At the University of Texas the first week of May the weapon was a knife. Take a look at how the 1,451,954 people who have died so far in 2017 in the US lost their lives. This is a real-time number as of 1:00PM central time on May 3^rd. It had climbed significantly before I finished calculating the total.

The simple truth is that all the deaths in the listed categories could have been prevented. Someone did something wrong, whether accidental or intended that ended in death. If we removed all the guns from the planet the “Murder by gun” category would go away but I am not sure that the “Homicide” number would drop significantly.

The US is routinely compared to other countries where gun violence is very low. We could always follow the example of Israel and require that every citizen serve a stint in the military where they could be evaluated and receive special training in weapon safety – just a thought…

Our government could also demand that all households turn over all weapons that fire a bullet. That would require changes in the constitution and make criminals of anyone who disagreed with the policy. For people passionate about their fire arms, this would set up deadly confrontations with law enforcement for two or three generations.

I don’t have an answer that would satisfy even the majority of the population concerning guns. But, understand that many college campuses throughout our nation have made it legal for their students, faculty and staff to carry concealed weapons. I pray that those decisions do more good than harm. All we can do is wait and see.

Accident:                          45666

Suicide:                            14357

Drunk Driving:               11348

*Homicide:                      5639

*Murder by gun:             3858

Texting while Driving:  2010

Falling out of Bed:         200

Killed by Falling Tree:  50

Struck by Lightning:     28

Spontaneous Combustion:           0