Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Should students carry guns on campus? (MSNBC)

WEIGH IN poll at the top, right, of the page.

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/12579116/

They've been talking about this poll on TV today - I want them to know we're out here...

It's funny, when the poll results lean to the left, they report it on their "Nightly News". But, when the polls reflect the right, the poll dissappears into oblivian never to be reported on. At least, it seems that way with NBC.

LOL...U R spot on on that one...if the results aren't what they like, they hide the damn thing! I watch Fox...but if I feel like getting my heart rate going I watch MSNBC or ABC. Did anyone see the NUGE last night?? He kind of rambled, but of course he was right on...think he was so worked up that he kind of lost his thread a couple times!

"your vote cannot be recorded"......... WTF? Dutch.

Just voted. 58% say yes, they should be allowed to carry. Oooraahhh!

Yes 59 to 41 percent

up to 60 now..

Just voted 61%

I just voted. It's now 61% to 39% in favor. If this poll has any accuracy this is a good sign. I think anyone who has a CCW should be allowed to carry anywhere a Federal police officer can carry including on all flights in the US. This would send a clear message and go a long way to reducing massacres.

62% with my vote..

You know , their standard reply is going to be that the gun owners flooded the poll and skewed the results . Therefore this poll will be shown by the "antis " to have no merit.

63% with my vote...

64 now.

Live Vote
Last summer, a Virginia Tech student wrote an editorial in the Roanoke Times saying he'd feel safer if students were allowed to carry guns on campus. What do you think? * 1518 responses

Students should be allowed to carry concealed licensed weapons on campus. 64% agree

The massacre was an isolated incident. Banning guns on campus is still a good idea. 36% agree

Last summer, a Virginia Tech student wrote an editorial in the Roanoke Times saying he'd feel safer if students were allowed to carry guns on campus. What do you think? * 1569 responses

Students should be allowed to carry concealed licensed weapons on campus.
65%

The massacre was an isolated incident. Banning guns on campus is still a good idea.
35%

Virginia Tech's Gun-Free Zone Left Cho Seung-Hui's Victims Defenseless
By Jacob Sullum
Wednesday, April 18, 2007


Last year Virginia legislators considered a bill that would have overridden
policies at public universities that prohibit students and faculty members
with concealed handgun permits from bringing their weapons onto campus.
After the bill died in committee, The Roanoke Times reported, Virginia Tech
spokesman Larry Hincker welcomed its defeat, saying, "I'm sure the
university community is appreciative of the General Assembly's actions
because this will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on
our campus."




Maybe Hincker was right. But as Monday's horrifying mass murder at Virginia
Tech vividly demonstrated, there is a difference between feeling safe and
being safe. The university's gun ban not only did nothing to protect people
at the school; it left them defenseless as a cold-blooded gunman
methodically killed 32 of them over the course of two and a half hours.




If some students and faculty members had access to guns during the attack,
there's a good chance they could have cut it short. According to witnesses,
the killer -- identified by police as Cho Seung-Hui, a senior studying
English -- took his time and paused repeatedly for a minute or so to
reload.




In shootings at other schools, armed students or employees have restrained
gunmen, possibly preventing additional murders. Four years ago at
Appalachian Law School in Grundy, Va., a man who had killed the dean, a
professor and a student was subdued by two students who ran to their cars
and grabbed their guns. In 1997 an assistant principal at a public high
school in Pearl, Miss., likewise retrieved a handgun from his car and used
it to apprehend a student who had killed three people.




Not only can guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens save lives in
situations like these; they may even make such situations less likely. It
may seem implausible that the possibility of armed victims would deter a
seemingly irrational, suicidal attacker such as Cho, who ended his attack
by shooting himself in the head. But even a gunman who expects to die
during an attack does not want to be stopped before he can carry out his
homicidal mission.




In a 1999 paper, economists John Lott and William Landes presented evidence
that such concerns do in fact deter attacks. Looking at public shootings
with multiple victims between 1977 and 1995, Lott and Landes found they
were substantially less common in states where law-abiding residents are
allowed to carry handguns after meeting specified requirements, such as a
background check and firearms training.




This difference remained even after Lott and Landes controlled for a
variety of variables, such as population, poverty and arrest rates, that
might be expected to affect violent crime. They also found that attacks in
states with relatively liberal carry permit policies tended to be less
lethal, presumably because they are more often stopped by armed bystanders.




In addition to illustrating the folly of gun-free zones, the Virginia Tech
massacre shows the pointlessness of laws aimed at firearms that are said to
be especially dangerous or especially useful to criminals. Paul Helmke,
president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, responded to the
Virginia Tech shootings by bemoaning "how easy it is for an individual to
get powerful weapons in our country."




Cho used two handguns, a .22 and a 9mm, neither of them especially powerful
or exotic. Contrary to the false promises of gun controllers, firearms
cannot be neatly sorted into "good" and "evil" categories; any weapon that
can be used for self-defense (or for hunting) also can be used to murder
people. A gun's specific features matter even less if the victims are
unarmed.




"We can't have an armed guard in front of every classroom every day of the
year," Virginia Tech campus police chief Wendell Flinchum said after the
shootings. Given the reality that police cannot be everywhere, it is
unconscionable to disarm people who want to defend themselves.






Jacob Sullum is a senior editor at Reason magazine and a contributing
columnist on Townhall.com.

WN

Just voted "yes" they should be allowed to carry.
It's at 65% for carrying.
I'll be sending this to all my buddies.

Thanks for the post!!
Don

66% vs 34% with my vote!

66-34 with mine

I'm in.
66-34