9/01/2007

Northern Iowa University Faculty Senate Votes Against Letting Campus Police Carry Guns

At a special meeting on Friday, the University of Northern Iowa Faculty Senate voted overwhelmingly against arming campus police.

The senate debated the issue for nearly an hour late in the afternoon as the campus emptied for the long holiday weekend. Ultimately, it decided the university would be safer if campus police did not carry guns. The final vote was 11 in favor of a motion to oppose arming campus police, with three voting against and one abstention. . . .


Professor Jerry Smith makes a strong point about police not being able to respond to an attack. Yet, I think that there is a further point. Not only will unarmed police be unable to respond, but if one believes in deterrence, unarmed police will actually make the attack more likely. The killers engaged in these multiple victim public killings have the warped objective to try to kill or wound as many people as possible and how successful they are is related to the amount of time that elapses between when the attack starts and when someone else with a gun is able to arrive on the scene. To the extent to which one can reduce these killers return to harming others, you can deter some attacks from occurring. Basically, some simple economics.

I find it amazing that even professors really believe that campus police, with the same training as other officers, carrying guns will make the campus less safe. The discussion about officers shooting African-Americans as a reason not to arm campus police is truly remarkable.

Thanks to Richard Featherstone for sending me this link.

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4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Markie Marxist sez: "Our Marxist values rule on campus! We have a gun ban agenda to put in place, so we need every dead body we can get to help advance our agenda. This vote was an invitation to mass murder - that is exactly what our agenda requires and exactly what we want. When the shooting stops and the bodies are still warm, we'll blame the gun lobby generally, the NRA especially and John Lott particularly. Then our friends in the media, especially at the New York Times, will agree with us wholeheartedly. We can't lose. We own this country."

9/01/2007 8:12 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

See here. Imbeciles.

9/03/2007 7:14 AM  
Blogger James said...

I attend UNI and hear about this all the time. I'm not surprised that this was voted down, as the campus police aren't exactly the most pleasant and revered cops you'll have ever seen.

I'm almost apathetic to this issue, as I've never felt unsafe and highly doubt that the campus police will encounter a (legitimate) reason to use firearms anytime this decade. I'd be much happier to see the school allow students with carry permits be granted permission to carry on campus, but since this is Iowa, that number probably isn't even in the double digits.

9/12/2007 6:35 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

We have a few college students online from University-of-Northern-Iowa and we love your blog postings, so well add your rss or news feed for them, Thanks and please post us and leave a comment back and well link to you. Thanks Jen , Blog
University of Northern Iowa

12/16/2009 1:35 AM  

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