Campus gun safety rules questioned

December 7th, 2011

By Maria Medina

Radford, VA – Students with differing perspectives on how gun rights work on a college campus spoke out at Radford University today.

A dozen members of the Virginia Citizen’s Defense League and RU students said they favored rules that would allow concealed weapons on a campus.

Opposing them were two students with first-hand experience of the Virginia Tech 2007 massacre who have been staging counter-demonstrations at universities where the VCDL has been demonstrating over the past two months.

“It’s our belief that the innocent life is sacred and that it should be allowed to be protected,” said President of VCDL Philip Van Cleave. “And we feel like the message of Virginia Tech was, no one was armed, no one could protect themselves, so they were basically just waiting to be murdered, and we think that’s wrong,” he said about his campaign in reference to the April 16, 2007 tragedy.

RU Republicans favor concealed weapons on campus
Two Virginia Tech students support gun-free campus.
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VCDL also visited VA Tech on November 17, where the campaign was the same. They are currently using the slogan “No guns? No funds!” to encourage the halt of donations to campuses with restricted gun policies.

“We are telling alumni and others, ‘don’t contribute any money’ and basically saying ‘no guns no funds.’ Unless you change your policy I’m not contributing anymore… I want the students to be able to protect themselves, as well as faculty,” said Van Cleave.
Liberty University is one school in Virginia already leaning towards what the VCDL is hoping for. They recently made policy changes which will allow students to keep concealed weapons in cars parked on campuses.
“We want to go much further than that. If you’ve got a permit you should be allowed to carry your weapon… permit holders carry in buildings all the time… and nothing unusual is happening except that these people are able to protect themselves. So we want more than that, however that was a good first step,” said Van Cleave.
Van Cleave makes the argument that university policies or state laws are not going to be followed by those who bring weapons onto campus with ill will anyway.
“Keep in mind always that criminals don’t ask for permission. So by giving me permission to carry or not in a building has nothing to do with a criminal, because he will do it anyhow,” said Van Cleave. “I think a lot of people say ‘well if the university said no guns I wouldn’t carry a gun, therefor nobody will,’ but that’s just not the way it works.”
Advocates for campus gun policy were also present. Two young men, Virginia Tech shooting survivor Colin Goddard as well as Omar Samaha, who lost his sister in the tragedy, braved the cold and wet as well.
“We realize that campus violence is not something you’re going to shoot your way out of,” said Goddard. “If we were talking about somebody in law enforcement that’s been trained in high stress situations and is accountable, then that’s a conversation that, let’s have. But, not just giving guns to students and saying ‘shoot the bad guys first’.”
Samaha pointed out that the VA Tech shooting was preventable and that campuses can become safer without the use of firearms. “First of all, the state needs to start with the background checks… from there you can get into so many different things with the school, like having locks on the doors. At Tech, there were no locks on the doors,” said Samaha.
Both Goddard and Samaha also feel there is a faulty notification system, saying that there was a two hour time difference between the first homicide at Tech and when students were notified that there was a shooter on campus.
“I woke up and drove to class before I even knew there had been a double homicide with a shooter on the loose… if students had known that, you know, people wouldn’t have been in class at ten in the morning,” said Goddard.
Goddard and Samaha stress the point that they are not anti-gun, but against the idea that in their opinion those who would be allowed to carry concealed weapons would not be well enough trained to help a violent situation.
“Why can’t we have an armed guard in each building? Okay, call it too pricey or too expensive, but I don’t think you can put a price on safety in the end. But why have a student who has potentially never shot a gun in his life carry one to school? Why can’t we put a professional in there to protect us?” said Samaha.
Student reaction was mixed, some grabbing stickers and handouts from VCDL campaigners and some coming to thank and speak with the opposing side of the debate.
“I am definitely for us having guns and being able to arm ourselves and defend ourselves if necessary,” said Katelyn Crispino, an RU student.
Caitlin Tedesco, a transfer to RU from Tech, sees it differently. “Guns on campus would cause fear on campus where students have been told they should feel safe. Also, any mix up with a gun carrier could possibly cause major chaos leading to a dangerous situation,” said Tedesco.
Earlier in the month VCDL also visited Virginia Commonwealth University and plans to take their fight on the road again to neighboring James Madison University tomorrow, starting their campaign at 10:30 am in the Commons outside of Gibbins Hall.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
http://www.studentsforgunfreeschools.org/
www.vcdl.org