The Observer, February 22, 2008
Volume XL, Issue 18
Guest Columnist: School shootings can be stopped by fewer firearm restrictions
Like many of my fellow students, I have reacted to the recent shooting at Northern Illinois University with a mixture of horror, anger, and disgust. I was a high school senior, mere months from matriculating here as an undergraduate, when violence struck our own campus. Looking back on my feelings surrounding the incident, I thought to myself, "It would never happen here again." I felt confident that I had nothing to fear; the violence had come and gone, and would not happen again. All across campuses throughout our nation, I am sure thousands of students have repeated a similar mantra to themselves.
After all, the seduction of ignorance is hard to deny. Consider the reaction to the shootings here in 2003. For some time after the shootings, anyone entering the Peter B. Lewis Building had to present a Case ID. We wrapped this "security measure" around ourselves like a child's blanket, believing that it protected us from those whose intentions were malicious. Of course, it did nothing meaningful to shield us. We increased security in the Peter B. Lewis Building and ignored the dozens of other campus buildings where violence could strike. We did this not because it helped us, but because the Peter B. Lewis Building was the site of a psychological and spiritual trauma, a place where the structure of civilized life was broken down by a person with no regard for its rules. We protected it because it repaired the breaches in our ignorance, not because it safeguarded us in any meaningful way.
I have worked as a Residence Life staff member for several years, and I know the allure of willful ignorance. Even today, if I knock on a student door, I consider it impossible that the student on the other side will be armed. I have even thought that because of the rules here, I will never encounter a firearm in the course of my job. In some ways, this is a true statement. Many students, those mindful of the rules and conventions of the school, will never keep a firearm in their rooms. These students, comprising a vast majority of the undergraduate body here, do not worry me.
Individuals who willfully strike out and kill their fellow students in fits of rage and depression, who murder in senseless bursts of irrationally, who shake the foundations of civilized life – these are the people about whom we blind ourselves with ignorance. I am as guilty as anyone, telling myself that I will never face the terror of a loaded gun here, in my school, in my life. But it is precisely these people that our rules do not protect us from. Rules are mere words, the articulation of principles. They protect us to the extent that we collectively choose to obey them. When some ignore them, we are no longer safe.
To some, the proper response to a campus shooting is to tighten campus firearm restrictions and to increase police presence. We do this to shore up our faltering shield of self-deception. We tell ourselves that the solution to the problem of campus violence is stricter rules and the prohibition of guns on campus, believing – just as I have with my job – that if we ban guns, we will never see them. This ignorance comforts us, allowing us to function, but it neglects reality.
The truth is that one student, properly licensed to conceal a firearm, in the right place at the right time, could have stopped the terror at Northern Illinois University, and at Virginia Tech, and at any number of other places. There is nothing to fear from this student, who has shown that they respect the rules of society. They are no danger to us. Indeed, this student should have our gratitude; their will to act against the deranged and the violent protects us all.
Ignorance is an attractive philosophy, allowing us to wrap ourselves in comfortable illusion. But ignorance cannot save us from the concrete reality of violence. The solution to protecting our lives and our way of life is not to police more, but rather to constrict less. Allow properly trained students to arm themselves, and we will have in our midst shepherds, ready to act in the face of crisis. Those of you who wish to choose ignorance may do so, as I have done for many years. But do not force those of us who now choose reality to bear the burden of your decision.
Thomas A. Rehman is a candidate for the Master of Public Health within the department of epidemiology and biostatistics.
