What's Cynical About Making Colleges Accept Reality?
An unsigned editorial in the Winfield Daily Courier criticizes a Kansas concealed carry bill as being "cynical," and " nothing but a vehicle for raising a wedge issue for zealous Second Amendment supporters in this year’s elections." There are a number of problems with this theory, but the substance is even more troubling.
In several states, legislation has been introduced which would require government facilities, including state-run colleges, to either allow concealed carry, or equip the facilities with metal detectors and gun storage lockers to ensure these "gun-free" zones are actually gun-free. What's cynical about that? Anti-gun groups, and the editors at the Winfield Daily Courier, are trying to paint these requirements as extreme. They claim it will cost universities millions of dollars to comply, conveniently ignoring the free option—allowing responsible, law-abiding, licensed gun owners the same measure of personal protection they currently enjoy virtually everywhere else.
In the haze of bickering and misinformation, it is easy to lose sight of the inconvenient truth: the staunch opposition to this measure is a tacit admission that these locations currently have no method of ensuring the so-called "gun-free" zones are actually gun-free. What is cynical about making college campuses live up to the standard they profess to hold? It is truly cynical for college administrators to insist they have a right to ban self-defense on campus without taking adequate measures to ensure student safety. It is truly cynical for administrators to disarm law-abiding citizens when they know and willingly admit that criminals could bring virtually any weapon onto their campus without detection.
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