Story Idea: Guns on Campus

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Pistol-Packin’ Profs?

News Hounds:

You may have heard on the national news the story about a biology professor at UAlabama-Huntsville who walked into a faculty meeting on campus Friday and gunned down three of her fellow professors. This is a chilling story on many levels, but it has particular resonance for professors, both those who are on tenure-track and those who sit on their promotion committees.

The AP story is here.

How about a story on the pressures of promotion & tenure at USU?

Meanwhile, on page B7 of the Herald Journal this morning (Sunday), I found the interesting juxtaposition of an ad for “Concealed Firearms Permit of Utah” (www.CFPofUtah.com), which is holding “ONE TIME 4-HOUR CLASS” with “Law Enforcement Firearm Instructor DEX TAYLOR” in Logan Thursday 2/18 from 6-10 p.m. and Saturday 2/20 from 8 a.m.-noon.

And/or a story about Utah’s concealed weapons law, which is an issue story all by itself. (Some years ago, the then-president of the UofU, Bernie Meacham (?) denied firearms on his campus. The Legislature, in retaliation, garnished his salary and that of top U administrators. Guns have no place on a college campus, he argued. It’s state law, gun proponents responded.)

So do guns belong on campuses? From the Virginia Tech massacre a couple of years ago to various others (Google ’em), (including a friend of mine, a J prof at a Missouri college, who was murdered by a student in his own driveway many years ago...), guns on campuses have resulted in headline-making killings. Proponents say that permitting guns on campuses will make everyone safer, because the “good guys” will be armed when the whackos start shooting, and so can protect the rest of us. But that scenario has never happened.....

TP
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