Empty Holster Protest

The SCCC or “Students For Concealed Carry on Campus” will stage another “Empty Holster Protest” for the week of April 21-25, 2008. At campuses all over the United States, students will wear empty holsters to school. This is the second such protest staged by this organization, now some 11,000 members strong. The first protest was held in October of last year on the campuses of 125 separate US Colleges and Universities. SCCC says this protest will be different from the last in that it will focus more on educating the uninformed on the facts of concealed carry laws and how they differ on college campuses. I applaud their effort but “educating the uninformed” on a college campus is akin to bouncing one’s head off of a brick wall repeatedly in hopes that the wall will get out of the way. Nevertheless…off comes my hat to this courageous group of students.

SCCC shares my view that state laws and school policies that forbid duly licensed students and faculty members from carrying their weapons on campus tilts the scales dramatically in the odds of criminals and murderers by disarming the only people who are willing to follow the law in the first place. They drive this point home quite well in my opinion with the graphic on a t-shirt they’ve designed, which has the following caption:

"THIS IS A GUN FREE ZONE. If you were planning on shooting a bunch of innocent people and then yourself, we’re sorry, but that is not allowed here."

Funny stuff, but I think it illustrates the ignorance that permeates the anti-gun left and those that think that if you pass a law, criminals are bound to follow it.

Those who have read this site on any semi-regular basis know that this is a subject near and dear to my heart. Having endured the unfortunate experiences of being robbed at gunpoint, mugged twice and stabbed in the stomach, I can speak with a certain degree of authority when I tell you that if you think it can’t happen to you…you are sorely mistaken. I cannot understand why it is so difficult to convince someone who hasn’t personally experienced the terror of having to fight for his life of the need to arm himself today in case he needs to defend himself tomorrow. Excuses abound. “I don’t frequent dangerous areas.” “I’d never put myself in that situation.” “I’d just run away.” “I don’t think I could ever pull the trigger on another human being.” “That’s what the police are for.” All of these excuses are useless drivel to the man or woman being beaten, raped, or robbed in what they thought was a safe place like their home, their car, or the mall.

I’d never insinuate that I think everyone should carry a gun. Some people just don’t want to. That’s fine. I personally don’t understand that decision but I certainly won’t trample on your right to not defend yourself. But, dammit don’t trample on mine either. How can anyone say that they just wouldn’t feel safe if his or her fellow college students might be carrying a gun? They wouldn’t know! The gun would be “concealed”! How could anyone say that they would feel safer knowing it was illegal for an otherwise duly licensed, law abiding adult college student to carry his or her personal sidearm to class when the otherwise non-licensed, non law abiding, mentally disturbed psychopath who writes poetry about killing people might be sitting in the chair right next to them with 10 guns in his backpack because he doesn’t give a flying crap about some damned policy forbidding him from doing so or some toothless law which threatens to punish him AFTER he’s committed his crime? What other alternative is there besides a Gestapo style Police State where “Big Brother” is lurking in every shadow and there are cameras in the locker rooms? Who the hell wants that?

I finally got my mother “retrained” and “un-indoctrinated”. Now she has three handguns and just mailed in her application for her Concealed Weapon License. I literally drug and cattle prodded my wife to her concealed weapons class this weekend and she is finally completed with the application process, though she still cannot fathom why it is so important to me. With eyes rolling and big nagging sighs and smart-assed little comments about how boring it was, she reluctantly agreed to sit through the class (at my expense) and fill out the appropriate paperwork to get her license. She doesn’t object to the right to keep and bear arms, mind you. She’s just not very enthusiastic about exercising that right herself. Normally, I’d say “whatever float’s your boat, lady” but this is a little different. She is my wife and she is the mother of my children. When I’m not around, the safety of those children falls squarely on her. It boggles my mind, though, how I can work in Public Safety and tell her of all the carjackings, home invasions, rapes, robberies, murders and mayhem that I encounter on a daily basis and her still remain indifferent to it all…living in a bubble. She was there when I stumbled into our little apartment, blood pouring from my abdomen after being stabbed. She saw it. She remembers when two men who wanted my wallet and the measly 10 bucks that was in it, knocked me unconscious. Yet still, she nonchalantly skips through her day, oblivious to the potential danger. If I have to work this hard to convince someone who has lived through this crap with me and who does not object to the right to carry a gun to do so, these students have a long hard road to convince the liberal academia that they should be able to exercise their right to carry an evil firearm. Good luck.