Indiana Empty Holster protest

The Lafayette Journal and Courier has an article about the empty holster protest that was conducted at the local community college and Purdue University.  Additionally, on their front page they have a poll up about whether you favor relaxing concealed weapons prohibitions on college campuses.  Right now, the “No CCW for students” are winning about 66% to 34%, so go over there and vote.

The actual article on the student protest is pretty much par for the course, the J&C does a half decent job of reporting the protest, presenting both pro-gun and anti-gun sides in a relatively balanced light.  My biggest issue is that they and other MSM outlets keep repeating this line:

If anyone could carry a firearm on campus, Mishler said, how would police separate legally licensed students from an assailant?

Uh, generally speaking, the guy running around murdering people is probably the assailant.  You won’t know who the law-abiding armed citizen is until his or her life is threatened and they have no other option than to resort to force.  Color me crazy, but people who go through the hoops and long, long, long, waiting period to get a carry permit in Indiana aren’t going to be the ones committing mass murder, they’re going to be the ones who go to class, socialize with their friends, and you never know they’re armed unless that person’s life is imminent danger of death or grievous bodily harm.

Thanks to reader Rob K. for the heads up.

6 Comments

  1. The thing that bugs me most about that “how will the cops know who’s the bad guy” argument is that it doesn’t seem to be a problem anywhere else in the state. Why would it be a problem in a class room, but it’s not in all the liquor stores, bars, grocery stores, convenience stores, gas stations, banks, restaurants, etc. etc. ad nauseum other places in Indiana where we can carry?

  2. You know, that’s a good point. I mean, I carry concealed everywhere I’m legally allowed to in Indiana, including bars when I’m the sober driver, and I’ve yet to be taken for anything other than an average citizen going about my business.

    I also don’t patronize establishments that prohibit the carrying of weapons – for example quite a few of the bars in Broad Ripple do pat-downs before they let you in. There’s a screwy logic there, in that if a place has had enough problems inside to warrant patting down the clientèle, then it’s also not a place where I’d want to be unarmed, thus I don’t go there.

  3. “If anyone could carry a firearm on campus, Mishler said, how would police separate legally licensed students from an assailant?”

    Why does it matter? They don’t come in until it’s all over, anyway. The only way they can tell the bad guy now is that his body is the one with the self-inflicted wound.

  4. Ha! Yes, that’s now the canonical response: “The shooting will be over and the good guy will have his sidearm holstered by the time the police get there.”

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