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With Constitution Day this past week it was a prime time to rekindle the discussion over concealing and carrying firearms on the University of Missouri-St. louis' campus. A campus event dealing with the issue (the klashnikov-covered banner in the MSC) offered a venue for such discussion.
Reasoning for any allowment of concealed firearms on our campus ranges from an exercise of one's constitutional right under the second amendment to the added reassurance of an armed student body will have against violent criminal acts.
It is hard for The Current to agree that a prohibition of guns on our campus means violation of the second amendment. The Supreme Court has continuously maintained that the second amendment is not unlimited and is subject to reasonable prohibitions and restrictions.
College campuses have always been included in those restricted areas as are all elementary and secondary schools. Upholding the ban that has been in affect since the university's inception over forty years ago will do little to resend anyone's constitutional rights.
The added security that supposedly will benefit by allowing armed students into classrooms amounts to nothing more than unlikely speculation.
The violent crime rate at UM-St. Louis is so marginal now that it would be hard to believe that the inclusion of guns on campus will do anything to bring, or even keep, that number low. Actually, the opposite could happen, an increase of firearms on campus could amount to an increase of crimes perpetrated with firearms.
Even if the violent crime rate on campus did warrant an increase of armed personnel, it is not be the role of students or faculty to fill that role. The purpose of the campus police force is to provide security to the university community.
Having what will amount to an armed student militia has the potential to complicate any shooting that would take place on campus.
In a worst-case scenario of a gunman on campus, with armed students coming to the aid of their unarmed classmates, it would be simple for the situation to quickly escalate to violence.
By having an untold number of armed students on campus, how is one supposed to tell who the original perpetrator is from another armed someone-else who is protecting themselves?
This problem will only be compounded when the police attempt to intervene.
What is the probability that the responding emergency services will know who to act against?
We are not attempting to comment on gun control as a whole or even the issue of conceal and carry in this state in particular. But it seems non-sensical to allow concealed weapons on college campuses, no matter the supposed benefits it may or may not bring.
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