VA's Campus Gun Laws Punish Adults

Students carry many necessities with them to class each day, toting backpacks filled with everything from textbooks to virtual over-the-counter drug stores stocked with every pain reliever and stay-awake medication known to man. Most students look for ways to reduce the number of items they must carry across campus, but a determined group of college students in Virginia are making national headlines not for what they carry in their backpacks but for what they want to carry under the concealment of clothing: handguns.

The debate over a student’s legal right to carry concealed handguns on college campuses did not begin with the tragic Virginia Tech shooting spree in April, but that event more than any other has provided the impetus students needed to push this issue to the forefront of public awareness. While officials at various levels and parents of Virginia Tech students immediately engaged in the blame game over actions that might have minimized the death toll from Seung-hui Cho’s rampage, students at George Mason University organized Students for Concealed Carry on Campus and have worked to overturn the Virginia law that allows colleges to dictate whether students, faculty, or staff members with valid concealed-carry permits from carrying their firearms on campus.

Emotional levels skyrocket when conversations turn to guns on school campuses, and the debate over this issue in Virginia has been quite spirited. The initial reaction by schools nationwide has been to oppose any measures permitting concealed weapons on campuses, and Virginia’s colleges have, with the backing of Governor Timothy Kaine (D), reaffirmed their desire to retain authority to ban handguns from Virginia campuses. As this debate will likely escalate and venture into Supreme Court case territory, an analysis of the arguments on both sides should prove useful.

State and university administration arguments against allowing concealed handguns on campuses revolve around one central concern: safety. These concerns encompass a host of already dangerous and irresponsible behaviors by college students that administrators foresee as becoming even more potentially lethal with the introduction of concealed handguns to the mix: parties, alcohol, drugs, DUI, student fights or altercations, domestic disputes, grudges over grading issues, accidental discharges, and others.

From a law enforcement perspective, these are all valid concerns, but there is a significant flaw in the logic behind the safety concern, and that is the fact that at most universities and colleges, the majority of students live in off-campus housing, where by state law they are permitted to carry their concealed handguns to all of these types of activities. Very few students actually engage in the type of behaviors listed above while on campus because most campuses have behavioral restrictions and students seek to avoid running afoul of them. Thus, enforcing campus bans on handguns does nothing to prevent students from involving themselves in potentially dangerous behaviors while enrolled as students but performing them off campus.

I found the official position of The International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators, which represents campus public-safety officials, very questionable from a 2nd Amendment viewpoint. The association claimed that:

…the presence of students carrying concealed weapons "has the potential to dramatically increase violence on our college and university campuses."

Allowing concealed weapons brings the potential for accidental gun discharge or misuse of firearms at parties, including those where alcohol or drugs are used, and the possibility for guns to be used to settle students' disputes, the group said.

That argument deserves careful scrutiny. In most states, campus police are POST certified police officers with full police powers in a limited jurisdictional area, within a university’s geographical boundaries. They naturally like to know who within their jurisdiction is known to possess weapons. Yet when those officers go home, off campus, and go out to dinner or to the store, they do not know who else in these establishments might be legally carrying a concealed weapon. If these campus police officers feel that the very presence of students carrying concealed weapons “has the potential to dramatically increase violence on our college and university campuses,” what is the basis of that conclusion or belief?

Do those same officers feel that the presence of concealed weapons among private citizens off campus dramatically increases violence among the general population? If a 21 year-old Virginia man who is not a college student obtains required training and a concealed-carry permit and carries his concealed handgun to the local mall, does this association feel that he “dramatically increases” the potential for violence in that mall? If so, the association may be the only law enforcement organization I am aware of that is uniformly opposed to the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms.

All of the risks that guns on campus would present as cited above by this association would be present in any population that permits concealed weapons, but what the association cannot or will not explain is why it believes college students who must be 21 years-old to obtain such a permit are considered potentially dangerous, while the 21 year-old non-college student can carry his gun onto any college campus simply because he is considered a citizen and not a student. That is the crux of the Virginia law. It does not provide equal treatment between students who meet all the criteria for a concealed weapons permit and those who meet the same criteria but are non-students. In essence, Virginia students are singled out for restrictions on handguns simply because they are enrolled in school, which should be considered a sign of their desire to be responsible rather than a label that marks them as too immature or potentially dangerous to safely carry their concealed handguns.

I understand the position of the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators. Law enforcement always, from a tactical perspective, wants to know who is carrying weapons in their jurisdiction, because that knowledge could prevent a tragic accidental shooting due to mistaken identity and is considered essential to officer safety. Yet it is not the law-abiding, permit holding, concealed carry-trained citizen or student that is likely to present a threat to police officers. Crime statistics do not support any argument that legally owned firearms increase crime. On the contrary, most crimes are committed using unlicensed and illegally acquired handguns, because using “anonymous” weapons reduces the risk of being caught later.

In the case of the Virginia Tech shootings, it is quite possible that students carrying concealed weapons might have killed Seung-hui Cho and reduced the number of his eventual victims. It is also possible that SWAT teams responding to the scene might have shot those students brandishing firearms. The key issue here, though, is not what might have happened in that one incident. The issue is much larger. The central point of this debate over campus firearms is the legal reasoning involved in allowing non-students to carry concealed weapons on campus, which Virginia state law currently permits, while denying students who hold the same concealed weapons permit from carrying their firearms on those same campuses.

Emotional appeals against permitting legal handguns on campuses seem to be the political weapons of choice for educators and Virginia Democrats. Dismissing the legal arguments raised by Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker clouded the issue with appeals to sentiment rather than logic:

We don't believe that guns have any place in the classroom," Mr. Hincker said. "We've experienced far more of guns in the classroom than any university should have to endure."

What Hincker refuses to address is that guns in the classroom was not what caused the Virginia Tech tragedy. The tragedy was that Seung-hui-Cho’s were the only guns present on that terrible April morning. Twenty-one year old students can vote; they can drive; they can drink legally; they can own handguns and qualify for concealed carry permits. They are, under the laws of all states, adults. Virginia’s legislators have only two legal options available to resolve this debate over the right to carry handguns on college campuses: Either the law needs to be changed to forbid anyone but campus police to possess firearms on campuses, or the law needs to be changed to give adult students the same right to carry firearms on campuses that non-students currently enjoy. Educators and Democratic legislators find both options unpalatable, as one would certainly be challenged constitutionally, and the other would increase the number of guns present on campuses. There is nothing more fearsome to these groups than lawsuits and an armed populace.

As these entities and campus law enforcement administrators have demonstrated through their statements, they do not trust 21 year-old college students to be responsible with their legal right to carry handguns on or off campus, but they do trust 21 year-olds who chose not to attend college to be responsible while carrying their firearms on campus. The disparity is stunning, but is overshadowed by emotional pleas from Virginia Tech administrators, who insist that guns, and not a mentally ill individual, were responsible for the tragedy on that campus. As a result, they hold hostage the right of adult students at all Virginia universities and colleges to be treated the same as non-student adults when it comes to firearms.


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Seung-hui Cho, Virginia Tech, School Shootings, Concealed Carry, Virginia, Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators, 2nd Amendment, Gun Control

From "Freakonomics" to "Freakoterror"?

Has NY Times blogger and co-author of the best-seller Freakonomics, Steven Levitt, unintentionally spawned a new phenomenon that could be referred to as “Freakoterror?” Levitt’s post to the Times’ Freakonomics blog yesterday titled “If You Were a Terrorist, How Would You Attack?” has generated much controversy in the media, with seemingly equal numbers condemning Levitt as irresponsible for giving terrorists ideas or praising him for getting ideas out into the open so counterterrorism officials can consider them and plan accordingly. Could Levitt's foray into issues beyond his expertise result in waves of attacks by "Freakoterrorists," inspired by the attack ideas submitted by Levitt's readers?

I will admit that my career involvement in threat assessment and security planning caused me to react initially to Levitt’s post title with a slight cringe. This was not because I think he was doing terrorists any favors with his amateurish attempt to address a deadly serious issue, but because such hypothetical questions tend to blur the distinctions between what law enforcement and intelligence agencies can prepare for realistically and grandiose attack plans that would be a nightmare but are ultimately unpreventable.

Much of the criticism directed at Levitt for his choice of topic centered on the notion that by soliciting readers to submit their ideas for effective terrorist attacks in the United States, Levitt was somehow providing terrorists with potential plans they may not have thought of previously. That logic is flawed on several levels: First, it is a misguided assumption that radical Islamic terrorists read the Freakonomics blog. For argument’s sake, even if terrorist planners read Levitt’s blog, they would not have gained any knowledge they did not already possess; second, Levitt would not have been accused of helping terrorists if he had merely posed the question a different way. For example, if Levitt had asked his readers to submit their best ideas for an action movie involving a terrorist attack in America, as former CIA officer Bruce Schneier did last year, his readers would have proposed the same ideas, using their imaginations to attempt to concoct “realistic” terrorist attacks that would make for riveting film entertainment.

Some authors or screenplay writers have proven prescient, such as Tom Clancy’s novel Debt of Honor, in which a large jet was flown into the U.S. Capitol building during a State of the Union speech, wiping out most high-ranking government leaders. Did al Qaeda come up with the 9/11 plot after gathering around a campfire in Afghanistan and listening to Clancy’s book on tape? Of course not. Drawings of aircraft ramming American buildings were found in Ramsey Yousef’s dwelling during the investigation of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, two years before Clancy’s novel was published. It should surprise no one that terrorists are perfectly capable of hatching effective and original plots without the help of creative geniuses in American literature or Hollywood.

It is a testament to our arrogance that so many condemned Levitt based on the belief that terrorists lack the intelligence to come up with thousands of hypothetical plans on their own, without help from New York Times readers. Such thinking misses the mark. While western counterterrorism officials go home each day to eat, sleep, and interact with their families as much as their demanding schedules permit, radical terrorist planners go “home” by moving from one part of daily training camp to another, caves or tents, eating while discussing potential methods of attack, and relaxing around the campfire at night by tossing out hypothetical attack plans for debate. That is their life and the sole purpose to which they have dedicated themselves.

Levitt’s hypothetical plan, imagined shortly after the DC Sniper rampage, involved a score of armed terrorists driving around in cities of various sizes randomly shooting citizens. That was his suggestion for a terror attack that would meet his proposed criteria for fear inducement and low potential for the attackers to be captured or killed. Levitt is a professor of economics, not a counterterrorism analyst, thus it was not surprising that his proposal was not particularly imaginative.

Reader submissions, on the other hand, offered a variety of plot ideas that ranged from beautiful female Lara Croft versions of al Qaeda to Molotov cocktails constructed only with items purchased in airport terminal Duty Free shops, including gift cigarette lighters that are now allowed on flights after the TSA ban was lifted. Liberal readers argued that the terrorist threat is greatly exaggerated by the Bush administration to keep Americans in fear and Republicans in office. One reader suggested that it would be simple for terrorists to acquire automatic weapons, cross the U.S.-Mexico border, and shoot up movie theaters in south Texas, further alleging that the reason that has not happened under Bush’s watch is that such threats are concocted by the government to enslave fearful citizens.

It is obvious that the author of that comment underestimates, or more likely avoids discussions of one important reason why we have not seen attacks of that nature on American theaters, restaurants, or shopping malls, and especially such establishments in Texas: the 2nd Amendment. Yes, it would be relatively easy for a determined terrorist to acquire a weapon and go on a rampage at a mall. Non-terrorists have done that, as recently as February at Trolley Square Mall in Salt Lake City. That gunman killed several people, but was cornered and shot by an off duty police officer who had been dining at a mall restaurant. That is the key obstacle for organized plots for terror attacks at public places in America: the terrorists cannot predict how many average citizens among the potential victims is carrying a firearm and could thwart the plot before it achieves its goal of mass casualties.

This, among other reasons, is why gunmen plotting mass casualties like the Columbine killers or the Virginia Tech shooter focus on schools. Students are not allowed to carry guns on campus, thus the possibility of resistance is greatly reduced. Some commenters clearly missed another Clancy novel, The Teeth Of The Tiger, in which Islamic terrorists attempt a firearms rampage in a Northern Virginia shopping mall and are killed by off-duty counterterrorism operatives who resided in the area.

Such an attack might work in Britain or other “enlightened” European nations that have banned gun ownership by citizens, but Americans present a well-armed and action-oriented populace that would not easily be cowed into submission. American malls, theaters, and restaurants are filled each night with men and women who carry firearms and are willing to use them to preserve the lives of their families and fellow citizens. I can assure Levitt’s commenters that terrorists would not do much damage in a Texas (or Northern Virginia) theater or mall before being brought to justice by an armed movie-goer. Those clothing bulges aren’t concealing food smuggled into the movies to avoid high concession stand prices!

While Americans love to conjure up imaginative conspiracy theories, movie plots, or methods terrorists could use to attack us, ultimately the exercise is futile. Counterterrorism officials, limited as they are by budget constraints, must pick and choose which forms of attack are most probable, and dedicate resources and assets accordingly. Americans rightfully do not want to live in a police state or pay the terribly burdensome taxes that would be required to fund efforts to secure the country against all possible attacks. The alternative to a police state is what we see currently: government doing what it can with available resources, combining forces with an armed and vigilantly observant populace, knowing that we will be attacked but hoping to thwart as many attempts as possible.

In the end, it is good that we have Tom Clancy’s and others with active imaginations among us to help citizens think tactically and be more aware of their surroundings and potential targets in their communities. In a war against a radical ideology that devalues innocent life, preparation is not paranoia.

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Steven Levitt, Freakonomics, Freakoterror, Terrorist Attack Plans, 2nd Amendment, Counterterrorism, Tom Clancy, Mall Shootings, Bruce Schneier, Deterrence, War on Terror