A week ago today two students were killed and four were injured by a shooting at the University of North Carolina Charlotte (UNC) campus.
While this news is sad and heartbreaking for the students at UNC, college campus shootings have become a common occurrence here in the U.S. That’s a problem.
So far this year there have been 41 school shootings, including high schools and colleges. That’s an average of over eight shootings each month.
In the past decade we’ve heard more and more about students being killed in places where they should feel safe. The normalization of the deaths of students in schools is abhorrent.
Some students the Branding Iron interviewed after another of these shootings last fall said that getting shot while walking across campus has never really occurred to them, that the University of Wyoming doesn’t seem like the kind of place where those things happen. The idea that an active shooter event could happen on our campus doesn’t seem to really sink in for students. We’re isolated, we have a great community and people are generally responsible when it comes to firearms. These statements could be applicable to any number of schools where a shooting has happened.
People argue that access to guns is what has caused an increase in shootings. While it’s true that the process to obtain a gun can be pretty painless, especially here in Wyoming, that doesn’t mean it’s the only reason. The gun used at the UNC shooting was a legally obtained handgun which requires a permit. This permit is granted by the sheriff of the county and allows the person purchasing the firearm to skip an on-the-spot background check.
While a background check is done when people purchase a gun, there’s no way to ensure that the person receiving it is mentally stable. A few months ago the McIntyre dorms were evacuated for an assault with a knife. The kind of damage that could have been done in that scenario with a gun instead of a knife is exponential.
A college campus is one of those areas where the right to bring a lethal weapon capable of injuring so many in such a short time span should be limited in the interests of protecting the thousands of students, staff and faculty who study and work here every day.
Here at UW there has been some push in the last year for guns to be allowed on campus. Knowing that none of the campus carry legislation made it very far is a relief to us.
In a place where learning should come first there’s no need great enough to justify bringing a weapon into a classroom. The density of students moving around on campus between classes is a recipe for disaster if a gun misfired while on campus or a student here at the University decided to start shooting at other students.
Our gun rights shouldn’t be completely infringed on, but they need to evolve to reflect a country that cares enough to make school shootings a rarity instead of the norm.
