Bismarck Tribune: Your Gun Rights Aren’t Important
Completely ignoring the way so-called “gun free zones” have been exploited time and again by criminals looking to rack up a big body count (the “zones” are only “gun free” until a criminal comes along and victimizes those who pay attention to the law), the Bismarck Tribune suggests that cititzens’ gun rights aren’t important.
…allowing students to be permitted to carry concealed weapons isn’t the answer to preventing the mentally ill from inflicting tragedy. Nor is there evidence that arming students will aid in fewer deaths; it might even add to the carnage.
Because of school shootings over the years, campus security has improved steadily, even more rapidly since Virginia Tech. Our university campuses do not need student militia, a citizen posse or renegade self-deputized shoot-’em-up patrol efforts. On most campuses we have highly trained safety officers doing a very good job of protecting our students.
Bill Goetz, chancellor of the North Dakota University System, testified against the bill: “College campuses in this state, without guns, except those in the hands of trained law enforcement officers, now have less violent crime than almost any other place in the country,” Goetz said. “Let’s keep it that way.”
Directly contradicting Goetz’s testimony is the fact (conveniently left unmentioned by the Tribune that NDSU President Joe Chapman currently goes about in public escorted by an armed security guard. Most of us can’t afford a professional, trained security guard. I guess asking that we be allowed to exercise our 2nd amendment to protect ourselves is just too much to ask.
I guess only the political/social elite in this state deserve protection.
Regardless, it’s a bit annoying that the Bismarck Tribune editors feel that gun rights are some sort of privilege to be granted by the state when political leaders feel it’s appropriate. That may be the status quo, but perhaps the Tribune editors should spend a bit more time reviewing the actual text of the 2nd amendment which they, ironically enough, kick off their argument against run rights with:
“…the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.”
Shall not be infringed. Meaning that keeping and bearing arms is a right that cannot be taken away without due process. Meaning some sort of a conviction or other legal judgment of unfitness.
The Tribune mentions oft-invoked, and rather tortured, interpretation of the 2nd amendment as a “collective right” that only applies to state militias. But even that argument is null after the Supreme Court ruled in DC vs. Heller that the 2nd amendment is, in fact, an individual right.
Now, arrogant political leaders and ivory tower media types may want to think of gun rights as some arbitrary privilege to be allowed and tolerated only when it’s convenient to placate the rubes, but that’s just now how it is. Gun ownership is a right. If the state wants to deny that right, we need a better argument than “we don’t think it’s necessary.”
