By Myrriah Gosset
Students for Concealed Carry on Campus is a nationwide organization boasting a 40,000 person membership. This week the organization held their third National Empty Holster protest, and SCAD was a participating school.
The club has had two weeks of active participation by a few students and faculty members. The SCAD chapter, which is still in process of gaining its Inter-Club Council and Student Involvement recognition, had at least one student carrying his holster this week in protest to the idea that he cannot carry a concealed weapon on campus.
Blaine McCaleb, a sophomore industrial design major, is a licensed and registered gun owner in the state of Georgia. McCaleb is also a member of the national SCCC and is hoping to get the ball rolling on a SCAD Chapter.
“I am hoping to gain a better following of students and faculty at SCAD who appreciate that no one should ever be told they cannot protect themselves,” McCaleb explained.
The national organization gives details on their Web site about their views on how guns should be allowed on campus.
According to them, by allowing guns on campus, there would be less gun violence and crime committed at colleges across the country. This argument is based on what they call the Utah model.
The Utah Supreme Court ruled during the 2006 fall semester that licensed people could carry concealed weapons on all of the public university campuses in the state. This ruling was followed by a close study and observation that reported 80 semesters with no incidents of gun violence, including suicides by firearm, since the ruling.
McCaleb also cited a study that researched the mentality of gun owners versus non-gun owners. According to the SCCC Web site and information the study was administered by the Texas Violence Policy center, headed by William E. Sturdevant, a statistician.
“Gun owners are five times less likely to commit violent crime, these are facts and statistics. I hear the argument so often, ‘Oh, but someone could grab your gun,’ but the truth is an unarmed person does not want to assault an armed person, and with concealed carry schools, violence is non-existent,” McCaleb said.
McCaleb also claimed the states that do not allow students to carry concealed weapons on campus are where campus violence has occurred.
The 2007 at Virginia Tech shootings are their main argument and example.
“Fourteen of the 15 victims were over 21. Those students could have, under state law, been carrying and stopped that shooting,” McCaleb said.
With slogans running across the SCCC Web site such as, “Notebooks didn’t stop the bullets at VT. Return fire would have,” the organization and its members are in support for concealed weapons policy reform.
The other side of the argument is led by the largest gun violence prevention campaign,the Brady Campaign,which is attempting to accomplish the opposite of the SCCC. It calls for more regulations on gun control, especially on college campuses.
The Brady Campaign disagrees that arming students would make campuses safer, arguing that more then 50 percent of college students participating in binge drinking or drugs at least once a month would increase the risk of shootings, including accidents.
Additionally, the organization doesn’t believe that students returning fire could save lives. They state that even trained police officers only hit less than 20 percent of their intended targets.
The two sides also have opposing statistics to back up their arguments about the mentality and rate of crime committed by gun owners.
The SCCC cites the Texas Violence Policy Center study. The Brady Campaign cites a Harvard study called “Guns and Gun Threats at College,” which found that college student gun owners are less law-abiding than the average student, and are more likely to participate in binge drinking, using drugs and being arrested for DUI.
In the Georgia state legislature, a bill prohibiting additional limitations on carrying firearms and lifting other regulations on the carrying of concealed firearms was filed by representative Tim Bearden on March 4. The bill is in its second round of readings, and can be read online.
Empty Holster Protest week has come to a close but McCaleb is determined to get his cause on campus. There currently is no other organization on campus dealing with gun control issues, so SCCC would be the first.
McCaleb said he hopes to be a “strong voice out there. I want school administrators to hear us, state legislators, everyone. I want to say to them trying to tell someone where, when or even if we are allowed to protect themselves is not only wrong, it’s dangerous.”
Illustration by Jeremy Nguyen