Don’t Like Guns? Well, just go to a Private School!
Why is this even a thing?
Okay, let’s take a quick break from weddings and talk about something that’s, you know, actually important. This time last week, as I was a driving to work, I stumbled upon the tail end of an NPR interview with a Texas-based professor (economics I think?) who had decided to take an early retirement thanks to pending legislation that would permit faculty and students to carry guns on his campus.
He sounded like a good guy—the sort of professor you’d want to stick around—but I couldn’t blame him. Not one bit. If my school decided to allow guns on campus, I’d be out of there in a heartbeat.
Why is this even a thing?
The next interviewee was the faculty adviser of a right-to-carry club at an Ohio-based university. He was pushing for legislation to allow concealed weapons on campus.
I couldn’t believe that such a thing even exists, the legislation or the right-to-carry club, but that’s the Midwest for you (sorry to any Midwestern readers out there, but really, you should just move to California or come back east…).
His arguments made my stomach churn (i.e. “I’m defenseless on my way to work because it takes me half an hour to get to campus and what if I got a flat tire during that time?” Umm… maybe check your tire pressure? Get those bad boys rotated?) but what can I say? I’m a glutton for punishment, so I kept on listening and tried to wrap my head around his rather warped sense of logic.
You know, as an intellectual exercise.
But there is just no logic to the more guns = more safety argument.
And I know this first hand because I have been to other countries. And in other countries, school shootings aren’t a regular thing.
Kids don’t have to practice hiding out in their classrooms (unless they’re in, you know, actual war zones).
Lecture hall doors don’t lock automatically.
And imbeciles don’t say things like, “Well, if people are uncomfortable around guns at public universities, they can go to private schools instead.”
Because yeah, that’s totally feasible. Let’s just keep screwing kids from lower class families, shall we?
And don’t even get me started on Ben Carson’s blame the victim rhetoric…
Kat Echevarría Richter 
8 Responses to “Don’t Like Guns? Well, just go to a Private School!”
No words actually…
I know, right? It is just freaking mind boggling.
Well said, Kat.
Typo alert: see your second sentence and your closing sentence.
All fixed- thanks 🙂
In England that never happens. Gun laws here are so different. It seems so strange to us that guns can be bought at a shop. I know it’s a different country with different laws but I’m defo with you on this one.
All kids should feel safe at school.
I know, I remember feeling so much safer there than here. When I moved back to the States my mom asked me text her when I was going out and when I had gotten home safely again. I told her, “But I never did that in London! You had no idea where I was in London!” Her response? “I know, but they don’t have as many guns there.”
I really don´t get why people want to be around guns so much. In Slovakia, people are really non-violent – they can get passive-aggressive quite often, also there are these neo-nazi freaks who beat up the gypsies or homeless people – but mostly, people wouldn´t even think of carrying a knife, less so a gun.
I have guns and carry a gun. But to allow teachers and students to have guns in school will deviate the minds of the students from studying….. to waiting for an attacker so they could meet the purpose of carrying it. It’s like giving knives to 3rd graders. They would just go to school so they could show off who has the sharpest blade and maybe relive their fantasies and be the heroes they see when they watch japanese anime. Any weapon you bring with you tells you that I am ready to fight back. Let’s leave that to the authorities. Because sooner or later, students will be shooting eachother. And there is no more need for an outsider to attack the school.