Gun-free zones encourage violence

With the aftermath of the Virgina Tech shooting being sorted out, no doubt everyone on campus is asking the same question as other college students around the country. Could something like this happen at my school? How can it be prevented or handled? Hindsight is 20/20, with the callings for various firings and resignations at Virgina Tech, when this is another example of the dangers that lurk in a free society. In order to maintain our way of life, we surrender a level of safety. More so when you have an individual willing to take their life in the process of harming other.\nTo the point, the question no one is asking is how might this situation have played out if Virgina Tech was not a gun-free zone? How far would this individual have gotten if a few legally packing students or professors managed to put this shooter down before he racked up 32 deaths and nearly as many wounded? \nGun-control laws such as prohibiting guns on campus only encourage gun violence because criminals know without a doubt that they will meet no resistance during a shooting and the only people with guns would be the police. Ask any criminal in prison and their No. 1 fear besides getting caught is getting shot during a crime. Laws are only followed by those who obey them. Criminals don’t follow gun laws, which is what makes them criminals. \nIf IU is serious about the safety of its students, they would be wise to institute a program that teaches individuals how to care for and use a firearm to protect themselves. Instituting regulations requiring training and certification as well as regular range qualification would arm a group of legally carrying adults, which would no doubt result in falling numbers of rapes, as well as robberies, muggings and random acts of violence. Each year over 1 million instances of self-defense occur in which legally carrying individuals use their firearms to defend themselves with only 5 percent resulting in shots being fired. \nWhile there is no guarantee that armed students could have prevented this evil act at Virgina Tech, giving students the option to take responsibility for their safety would ensure that anyone would think twice about assaulting someone on IU’s campus for fear of being shot. Furthermore, it would take the administration seeing the students as responsible adults old enough to vote, die for their country, and able to purchase and own a firearm. Keeping guns out of all hands but those of a criminal will do nothing except make helpless targets of us all.\n \nTodd Waugh\nAlumnus\nPhoenix, Az.