Fewer Guns, Not More ‘Heroes’

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In the wake of the latest college shootings, Utah’s public college students are packing heat. I feel much safer now.

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (CNN) — The senior at the University of Utah gets dressed and then decides which gun is easiest to conceal under his clothes.

If he’s wearing a T-shirt, he’ll take a smaller, low-profile gun to class. If he’s wearing a coat, he may carry a different weapon, he said.

He started carrying a gun to class after the massacre at Virginia Tech, but the student says he’s not part of the problem of campus shootings and could instead be part of a solution.

Utah, according to CNN, is the only state which allows concealed-carry at all public colleges as well as other places around the state. “However, [a university administrator] said the regents are opposing a legislative proposal to allow people with concealed weapons permits to have the weapons visible in public. “We are worried that it may affect their [students’ and teachers’] willingness or desire to go to or teach a class on campus,” she said.

You don’t say?

Where once you had to worry that the slacker next to you might be copying your answers or calling you a tramp on JuicyCampus.com, now you have to worry that he might think that that bulge in your own pocket just might not mean you’re glad to see him. I teach at a university – hell, I live in America – and I worry about mall and campus violence and the nice, crowded targets we represent. Call me crazy, but I don’t feel any better thinking someone in the room believes he’s got the Die Hard focus to avoid all the fleeing bodies and the pandemonium and take out only the deranged shooter who started it all. All, of course, without breaking a sweat or wasting a bullet. Or a classmate. They’ve probably got their ‘just kicked your ass,’ toss-off movie one-liner ready — “hasta la vista, baby” and the like.

Maybe this isn’t really so much about the 2nd Amendment as some folks’ need to believe that they’re cowboy cool, all Clint Eastwood, and they’re going to NYPD Blue the perp right into the back of a squad car. Then get the keys to the city, a trip to the White House, a movie deal, the blonde…

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DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do things differently in the aftermath of a political crisis: Watergate. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after, and go deep on, stories others don’t. And we’re a nonprofit newsroom because we knew corporations and billionaires would never fund the journalism we do. Our reporting makes a difference in policies and people’s lives changed.

And we need your support like never before to vigorously fight back against the existential threats American democracy and journalism face. We’re running behind our online fundraising targets and urgently need all hands on deck right now. We can’t afford to come up short—we have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

Please help with a donation today if you can—even just a few bucks helps. Not ready to donate but interested in our work? Sign up for our Daily newsletter to stay well-informed—and see what makes our people-powered, not profit-driven, journalism special.

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