For the third time in I think as many years, a member of the NV legislature proposed a bill to allow guns on campus. In recognition of the slaughters seen on other campi where gunmen went unopposed until police arrived and in concordance with the history of Nevada as a gunslinging state, there are many who believe this would help our students. The administration of Nevada System of Higher Education disagrees, but their arguments evince first off an ignorance of the legislation and secondly a disaffection for the students. What exactly is their better plan? I just see nay-sayers, and that inaction helps only criminals. If they have a better plan, let's hear it.
Several years ago, when they first defeated this measure, they forced us all to take an active shooter course that essentially taught us to duck, hide, and hope we don't get shot. As a chemistry professor, I have access to things that I can use in the case of an active shooter, but I don't see the administration taking action to protect students. We have campus cops, but they seem more interested driving around in the parking lot scanning license plates for putative registration and insurance issues or giving speeding tickets than in protecting students. I had a student last term who was worried about a stalker. I looked out for her. They didn't do anything visible. Security patrols the halls, but they're sometimes just students on work study. I see the cops near their office. Meanwhile students are shot, raped, and the like without anything special being done to protect them. We have lights, we have panic call buttons, but the cops don't seem to be seen when I expect them to watch out for my kids.
We already have guns on campus. Some students carry against the law, particularly the ones who are criminals. Some of the campi in Nevada are in lousy parts of town, close to dangerous neighborhoods and exposed to the seedier parts of society. As in most historical crimes, the criminals ignore the laws, get guns anyway, and it's the innocents who suffer. The NSHE opposition centers around stupid ideas. The proposed bill calls to allow students and teachers with conceal-carry permits to carry guns. The NSHE worries about people, particularly children, seeing guns. How will they see concealed guns? Once again, they deploy an emotional argument about a putative eventuality while ignoring what is already happening. Wouldn't it traumatize a child more to see people gunned down around them? NSHE worries about identifying the wheat from the tares. They don't seem to consider that we would have to register with the campus as a gun-carrying person anyway. If the cops spent as much time walking the campus as they do glaring at us from outside their office, maybe they'd know who the good guys were when the bullets start to fly. NSHE has a weak argument, but they are crazy if they think we in academia are so stupid to just regurgitate their talking points to the legislative subcommittee.
At the end of the day, I care about my students more than I care about the college president, the board of regents, the campus police, or their asinine objections. Without students, all of those people are irrelevant. If there's a shooting, the students will go elsewhere. We have convoluted building layouts without much thought for egress for any kind of disaster. It's like they assume nothing bad happens in Nevada. Well, if there is a shooting in Vegas, it will NOT stay in Vegas. During the first night of lab, I explain to my students how to get out iff there's an active shooter, and then I tell them not to look back for me. I'll be keeping him busy. He'll regret coming into my lab, and I'll be damned if he takes any of my students from me.
Honestly, I don't know if this bill is the right call, but I do know that they're doing nothing of which I am aware to empower students to help themselves. This is a stupid time to finally decide to quote the hippocratic oath and "first do no harm" when the media makes it sound like there are campus shootings every day. Moreso, I think this is just another move they must make to stop people from carrying guns. Democrats say "if it would save one child" they will do it, but they're out there stonewalling this. What I do know is that only one thing usually happens when people without guns stand up to people with them. Just this evening, my dad and I talked about how having any gun can be a crime deterrent, and right now criminals of all stripes know that the students don't have guns and that when they leave campus the campus police won't give them a second glance. I don't have nitric acid off campus or anything to help them, but imagine if they knew some of the faculty were armed. They won't know which ones, but the campus police and metro police will. Suddenly NSHE opposition seems silly. Something needs to be done. Until the Democrats finally stop crime, I don't understand why they want to stop us from resisting it. That's the western way.
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