Around Campus

1. Avijit Ghosh, who was a finalist to become President of Western, has been implicated in a scandal involving a veterans scholarship. Guess who reported this five months ago?

2. Derek Jackson: what a fool.

3. Controversy continues over the proposal to allow CCW permit holders to carry guns in schools. Liberals have reacted with pure emotion, both in the Herald and the Gazette. But at least one student understands the issue.

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Columns make a mockery of gun laws

The Western Herald, showcasing that it is a fair and unbiased newspaper, has published two articles in two days mocking a bill introduced in the Michigan House that would allow school employees to have concealed weapons on school grounds. The columnists called it "arming teachers" and jokingly asked, "Why stop at giving teachers guns? Why not tanks?

"Demagoguery and absurd exaggerations aside, it's important to point out that no one is "arming" teachers or giving them guns. The Second Amendment quite explicitly gives people the right to arm themselves, and yet the government has seen fit to designate schools as "gun-free zones." This bill would simply allow people who work at schools and have concealed carry permits to carry their firearms with them to work. Making schools "gun-free zones" seemed to have little impact on the Columbine and Virginia Tech killers. Although it apparently boggles the liberal mind, people who plan on killing dozens of classmates in cold blood seem to have little concern for gun laws.

In fact, the only way making schools "gun-free zones" impacted the Columbine and Virginia Tech killers was by allowing them to kill and injure 92 people without having to worry that someone might be able to defend themselves. It's recently come to light that while Virginia Tech students were being summarily executed by a lone killer (a killer who somehow managed to get a couple of guns onto a "gun-free" campus), there were a handful of responsible, law abiding students who had concealed carry permits and owned firearms, but were forced to leave them in their cars due to gun laws. The Virginia Tech killer could have been stopped earlier in his rampage, lives could have been saved, but God forbid someone have a gun on campus!

This bill could turn the tables in horrible situations like Columbine or the Virginia Tech massacre by allowing people who have jumped through the government hoops to obtain a concealed carry permit to actually carry their firearms when they go to work. One of the Western Herald columns asked readers to imagine "30 students behind a sketchy madman with your sixth grade math teacher holding a gun." In reality, this bill could very well place a responsible, armed teacher in between 30 students and a madman with a gun.

Shane Carey
WMU sophomore