Lone Star College Shooting Proves Handguns on Campus Is a Bad Idea
4 People Have Been Injured in a Shooting at… by tvnportal
The Lone Star College shooting incident is the perfect example to prove the stupidity of the idea of putting more guns on college campuses.
However, even this incident was not enough to prevent the state legislators in Texas and their Arkansas conservative colleagues from pushing again for laws regarding allowing handguns on college campuses. The move sounds like an untimely defeat of common sense to ideology.
The shooting at the Lone Star College amid midday reminded everybody of the students’ tendency to be involved in feuds and fights. The decision of adding guns to it will only help escalating violence in the campuses.
On Tuesday night, Wayne LaPierre, the executive vice president of the NRA, backed the decision by a refutation to the second inaugural address of President Barack Obama. He said that Obama had just been promoting extremism by turning the idea of absolutism into a dirty word.
LaPierre’s words seemed way far from the reality. The ‘Slate and @GunDeaths’ made a tally that showed that the United States had seen another four school shootings since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. This statistics does not count the killed firefighters and cops or the 1,150 victims of gun violence throughout the country.
Harvard Injury Control Research Center’s director conducted a study that showed that the American children from kindergarten to eighth grade are 13 times more likely to be shot with guns than kids in other wealthy countries.
So, there is no problem to understand that gun is indeed a problem in the USA and immediate action is needed to exercise control over the free use of guns. However, the Republican side seems to be not concerned about it. Because of the party’s reluctance to confront the problem, Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal even described his side as the ‘Party of Stupid’.
One of the advocates of arming teachers and students on campuses is Rick Perry, the governor of Texas. However, the University of Texas’ chancellor Francisco Cigarroa strongly opposed this idea by saying that guns would make a campus environment less safe.
Interestingly, the NRA was a champion of promoting the idea of gun-free campuses during the late 1990s. However, now the organization nurtures exactly the opposite idea.
Increasing the number of guns in the campuses is not a bad idea if the carriers are trained enough to use their arms sensibly. However, students are likely to act on impulses and for this reason, the idea of allowing more guns on campuses will be an act of stupidity.
Even the NRA’s solution to employ more armed guards to prevent gun violence on campuses did not work out at Lone Star College, where the shooting took place while the armed guards on duty.
However, it is optimistic that the Obama administration has been trying to bring some effective laws to exercise control on gun violence.
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