ZeSpectre
Member
Guns Don't Belong in the Hands of Administrators, Professors, or Students
Now am I the only one who notices that most of his "warnings" against allowing folks to carry are concerned with how much money it -could- cost a school/college/university?
Interesting in a "money vs. safety" kinda way and doubly interesting given the recent settlement for Virginia Tech (a school that did it Villahermosa's way) is costing the Virginia taxpayers about 11 MILLION dollars!
Chronicle of Higher Education
From the issue dated April 18, 2008
Guns Don't Belong in the Hands of Administrators, Professors, or Students
By JESUS M. VILLAHERMOSA JR.
In the wake of the shootings at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University, a number of state legislatures are considering bills that would allow people to carry concealed weapons on college campuses. I recently spoke at a conference on higher-education law, sponsored by Stetson University and the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators, at which campus officials discussed the need to exempt colleges from laws that let private citizens carry firearms, and to protect such exemptions where they exist. I agree that allowing guns on campuses will create problems, not solve them.
I have been a deputy sheriff for more than 26 years and was the first certified master defensive-tactics instructor for law-enforcement personnel in the state of Washington. In addition, I have been a firearms instructor and for several decades have served on my county sheriff's SWAT team, where I am now point man on the entry team. Given my extensive experience dealing with violence in the workplace and at schools and colleges, I do not think professors and administrators, let alone students, should carry guns.
Some faculty and staff members may be capable of learning to be good shots in stressful situations, but most of them probably wouldn't practice their firearms skills enough to become confident during an actual shooting. Unless they practiced those skills constantly, there would be a high risk that when a shooting situation actually occurred, they would miss the assailant. That would leave great potential for a bullet to strike a student or another innocent bystander. Such professors and administrators could be imprisoned for manslaughter for recklessly endangering the lives of others during a crisis.
Although some of the legislative bills have been defeated, they may be reintroduced, or other states may introduce similar measures. Thus, colleges should at least contemplate the possibility of having armed faculty and staff members on their campuses, and ask themselves the following questions:
Is our institution prepared to assume the liability that accompanies the lethal threat of carrying or using weapons? Are we financially able and willing to drastically increase our liability-insurance premium to cover all of the legal ramifications involved with allowing faculty and staff members to carry firearms?
How much time will each faculty and staff member be given each year to spend on a firing range to practice shooting skills? Will we pay them for that time?
Will their training include exposing them to a great amount of stress in order to simulate a real-life shooting situation, like the training that police officers go through?
Will the firearm that each one carries be on his or her person during the day? If so, will faculty and staff members be given extensive defensive-tactics training, so that they can retain their firearm if someone tries to disarm them?
The fact that a college allows people to have firearms could be publicized and, under public-disclosure laws, the institution could be required to notify the general public which faculty or staff members are carrying them. Will those individuals accept the risk of being targeted by a violent student or adult who wants to neutralize the threat and possibly obtain their weapons?
If the firearms are not carried by faculty and staff members every day, where and how will those weapons be secured, so that they do not fall into the wrong hands?
If the firearms are locked up, how will faculty and staff members gain access to them in time to be effective if a shooting actually occurs?
Will faculty and staff members who carry firearms be required to be in excellent physical shape, and stay that way, in case they need to fight someone for their gun?
Will weapons-carrying faculty and staff members accept that they may be shot by law-enforcement officers who mistake them for the shooter? (All the responding officers see is a person with a gun. If you are even close to matching the suspect's description, the risk is high that they may shoot you.)
Will faculty and staff members be prepared to kill another person, someone who may be as young as a teenager?
Will faculty and staff members be prepared for the possibility that they may miss their target (which has occurred even in police shootings) and wound or kill an innocent bystander?
Will faculty and staff members be ready to face imprisonment for manslaughter, depending on their states' criminal statutes, if one of their bullets does, in fact, strike an innocent person?
Even if not criminally charged, would such faculty and staff members be prepared to be the focus of a civil lawsuit, both as a professional working for the institution and as an individual, thereby exposing their personal assets?
If any of us in the law-enforcement field were asked these questions, we could answer them all with absolute confidence. We have made a commitment to train relentlessly and to die, if we have to, in order to protect others. Experienced officers have typically fired tens of thousands of rounds practicing for the time when they might need those skills to save themselves or someone else during a lethal situation. We take that commitment seriously. Before legislators and college leaders make the decision to put a gun in the hands of a professor or administrator, they should be certain they take it seriously, too.
Jesus M. Villahermosa Jr. is founder of Crisis Reality Training, a consulting firm that specializes in issues of college, school, and workplace violence, and a former director of campus safety at Pacific Lutheran University.
Now am I the only one who notices that most of his "warnings" against allowing folks to carry are concerned with how much money it -could- cost a school/college/university?
Interesting in a "money vs. safety" kinda way and doubly interesting given the recent settlement for Virginia Tech (a school that did it Villahermosa's way) is costing the Virginia taxpayers about 11 MILLION dollars!
