Responding to the [anti]Freedom States Alliance
This is a response a recent Freedom States Alliance Press Release available here.
Once again, the anti-gun lobby has chosen to misrepresent or ignore the facts, and sacrifice the true safety of American students in favor of maintaining the long debunked delusion that college administrators can regulate crime out of existence. While this may ease the fears of paranoid faculty with little faith in humanity's inherent good, gun control does not save lives.
The Freedom States Alliance press release ignores relevant facts about the proposed Colorado State University, Ft. Collins (herein CSU) gun ban. Though anti-gun groups claim to support the rights of individual campuses to control their gun policy, that stance seems only to apply when campuses make the "right decision." The CSU ban was not proposed by the President of the University, but mandated by unelected "educrats" who are not a part of the campus community and will not be affected by the consequences of their decision. The Freedom States Alliance also ignores the blatant arrogance of these same board members who allow exceptions for the protection of "important people" like university administrators and distinguished visitors. This same, heartless disregard for student life was on full display during the Virginia Tech massacre as university "bigwigs" and their families were notified and evacuated over an hour and a half before the first notification was issued to students. If banning guns were a real solution to crime, then these exceptions would not be necessary.
The Freedom States Alliance--like most other anti-gun groups--would have you believe that guns, not criminals, commit crime. Such a preposterous claim also indicates the group did not bother to look at CSU's own crime statistics. Crime at CSU dropped dramatically on all fronts after 2003, the year concealed carry became legal on the CSU campus. If more guns actually equaled more crime as the Freedom States Alliance and Brady Campaign like to claim, then these rates should have skyrocketed.
Finally, the Freedom States Alliance claims that students oppose legal, concealed carry on campus. This may be true on campuses with entrenched gun bans, but it is patently false for CSU and other schools that have experienced life with legal concealed carry. At CSU, students overwhelming opposed the proposed handgun ban on the basis that it would make their school less safe. The Associated Students of CSU--the university's student government--voted 21-3 in favor of maintaining the status quo. Additionally, these students have the backing of the Larimer County Sheriff who has stated that he will not assist the CSU administration in enforcing a campus handgun ban which he views as an end run around state law.
The Freedom States Alliance may count the proposed gun ban as a victory, but it is a victory only in institutionalizing victimization and mandating students remain second-class citizens. That's not the kind of victory I would want any part of.
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