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--- Read Mike Murphy's opposing view to this article. --- You can now take a gun from Charlton Heston's cold, dead hands.
An advocate for both gun and civil rights, Heston died last week having spent his life fighting for the constitutional right to bear arms and working alongside the National Rifle Association as its president.
He thought Americans should safeguard their Second Amendment rights and fought to protect them from attacks from the Brady Campaign and other gun control activists.
If the right to bear arms was so essential to framers of the Constitution that it was placed right behind freedom of speech, press, religion and assembly, why are firearms so restricted today, especially in states such as California and on college campuses?
In response to recent campus tragedies, primarily those at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University, there is a growing movement that advocates a proper solution to help thwart the mass killings at colleges nationwide:
Allow students to carry concealed weapons on campus.
The gun-free zones that enveloped both Virginia Tech and NIU did nothing to stop Seung-Hui Cho from killing 32 and wounding 17 or stop Steven Kazmierczak from killing five and wounding 18.
A year after the Virginia Tech killings America's college campuses are no safer. Schools can put into place all the emergency plans they want, but nothing stops a shooter faster than a bullet from a person trained to defend themselves.
Allowing citizens to carry guns on campus could have stopped both of the mass killings, or at least prevented them from escalating, giving responsible students the ability to defend and protect themselves.
Allowing guns on campus would not create more violence, as the law would restrict anyone convicted of a felony, with an open restraining order or other open investigations, from carrying a firearm. On top of that, in California concealed-carry permits must be personally authorized by each county's top law enforcement officer. I would go a step further and require people applying for a concealed-carry permit to undergo a psychological evaluation and pass a month-long training exercise held by law enforcement or licensed by the state.
This would create enough barriers to make sure the people are responsible enough to have such a privilege.
W. Scott Lewis, a provost at the University of South Carolina, said "Eleven U.S. colleges - all nine public colleges in Utah, Colorado State University and Blue Ridge Community College, in Weyers Cave, Va. - have, for a combined total of more than 60 semesters, allowed concealed carry on campus, without a single incident of gun violence, without a single gun accident and without a single gun theft."
None of the campuses have had a problem with licensed, concealed-weapon holders, which proves if given the opportunity, responsible Americans will do the right thing.
The Brady Campaign, the nation's largest, nonpartisan, grassroots organization leading the fight to prevent gun violence, says arming students and teachers would create a volatile mix because college students are more likely to abuse alcohol and drugs, be mentally unstable and suicidal. But permits would only be given to people who can pass through the rigorous application policy, not unstable delinquents.
I am not advocating the open, unregulated use of deadly weapons throughout college campuses. I support the right for law-abiding citizens, older than 21, to carry a concealed weapon for the purpose of self-defense, the same right some Americans enjoy on campuses without incident today.
Something needs to happen to protect the innocent from deranged gunners.
Imagine a future where killers fear the classrooms they walk into.
David Flannery can be reached at photoeditor@theorion.com
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