It is significant that the people in authority who are most responsible for keeping college campuses safe, and who know the most about potential dangers students face, are overwhelmingly opposed to the guns-on-campus bill some Florida lawmakers are pushing toward passage.
The bill (SB 176) would allow individuals with concealed-firearm licenses to carry guns at state colleges and universities, overturning a longtime ban on concealed weapons on campus. The Senate Criminal Justice Committee approved the bill last week on a 3-2 vote.
The vote, according to the News Service of Florida, came “despite opposition … by the university system’s Board of Governors, university police chiefs and the 12 public universities.”
So the people most knowledgeable about the likely effects of guns on campus don’t want guns on campus.
Why, then, do some legislators?
For Sen. Greg Evers, R-Baker, sponsor of the bill, the big selling point is the idea that gun-toting people on a college campus could step in and stop violence.
Sometimes that works. Usually it doesn’t. Last year, a crazed couple in Las Vegas ambushed and killed two police officers who were having lunch. An armed civilian named Joseph Wilcox confronted the assailants. He was shot dead.
Mr. Wilcox’s death “should give pause to any who insist that having more armed citizens is the best defense against a would-be killer,” syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker observed. “Even if one person were to stop a killer in his tracks, it is not logical to extrapolate the occasional success story as proof of the argument.”
That may have been what Marjorie Sanfilippo, a psychology professor, had in mind last week when she referred to “mere speculation and ignorance of statistical probability” underlying the arm-the-students argument.
“Proponents will tell you that allowing conceal-carry will protect female students from sexual assault,” she added. “I will point out the obvious: You’ll be arming the assailants, too.”
One can support the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms while opposing legislation that needlessly exposes young people to firearm dangers.