Blah, blah, guns, blah, blah blah

A shout out to all of my academic colleagues who are so very strongly against allowing concealed carry on campus:  UCLA is your panacea, a gun-free campus!

As is well known by now a graduate student in engineering shot and killed a professor yesterday. Let's recap:  UCLA is a gun-free campus!  No firearms are allowed, so it is not at all clear how this could possibly have happened there. Aren't there rules against this?

Truth is, and this is a truth that the intellectual elites cannot seem to wrap their head around even when it is staring them in the face, that when someone is intent on killing, is willing to suffer the punishment associated with it or die in the effort, your silly little rules just don't matter to them.  Rules may keep you from doing things, but those intent on mayhem have no such inhibitions. As events highlights, dude clearly didn't decide to do this and then read the student handbook and remember that guns weren't allowed on campus, thus changing his mind.

So what did this "gun-free campus" rule do?  It ensured that the professor was not armed (because he follows rules) and could not defend himself - even if he would like to have been. Given he is a Californian and an academician, it is likely he felt great comfort in knowing that the UCLA rules against guns would protect him. He might as well have worn garlic around his neck to ward off evil.

And, btw, this happened in a gun-free zone in California.  You know, the state with the most restrictive gun laws in place - and looking for more - the one that the anti-gun crowd would like all states to emulate.  Didn't happen in a state where campus carry is legal. This professor's survivors should be suing the state and the university system this afternoon.

But let's end on a positive note and look at another story:



So - this is what one armed trained person with boots on the ground can do to prevent such events. Not a university or municipal PD, that is minutes away, but a person on scene. Who better to end this kind of killing than the intended victim?

Let's be clear - Officer Gudger, although a hero who deserves our praise, is no better trained than many good guys who carry guns.  She is simply brave and has the proper mindset. Most LEOS and certainly most SROs, are no better trained and spend less time on the range than many civilians. 

So we can pretend that a fantasy world exists where we can prevent bad people from doing bad things they are willing to die accomplishing, that somehow we can keep weapons from evil hands.  Those who think "Australian is an example worth considering" should know that it has not really worked out all that well. Conversely, we can trust good law-abiding people to protect themselves (and in so doing, others as well) against evil people who do not follow the law.

That is the choice our future holds.