When you hear "college student", what do you think?

When most people hear “college students”, I doubt that moderation, civility, restrained behavior, and maturity are the first things that come to mind. However, that does describe the vast majority of college students. But stories about those serious students who spend their time studying and working seldom make the news, and on film, serious students are usually seen only as pathetic foils to the “cool” students in most movies about college life.

I see this as a big problem for Students for Concealed Carry on Campus. When most folks hear “college student”, they don’t think of adults living lives like they do; they think Animal House or its ilk. It’s difficult to get people to take you seriously when they are seeing a toga party with firearms in their mind’s eye.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, over 66% of all college students in the United States are 21 years of age or older. They are past old enough in most states to serve in our country’s armed forces, get married without the permission of their parents, start a family, enter into contracts, incur debt, legally purchase and consume adult beverages, and do all the other things that free American adults can do, including keep and bear arms in defense of themselves and their families. And that’s what many of them have done. Until, of course, they become the drunk or hopped-up, hormone-driven, uncontrollable hedonists, otherwise known as college students, when they set foot on most college campuses. (If college campuses exert that kind of influence on the people who enter their grounds, colleges and universities should be closed, and we should find another method of imparting “higher” education.)

I wish I could offer a better name to SCCC, but after much thought, I’m not sure there is one. That’s a battle that will have to be fought in the public arena. And even after that battle is won, and I think it will be, the same tired arguments (blood in the streets, the cops won’t know who is the bad guy, bystanders shot, etc., will be recycled, as they already are. But, as the Utah university system shows, along with every other implementation of concealed carry in the U.S., these things just don’t happen.

There is a lot of cultural baggage that goes with being identified as a college student. Empty Holster protests targeted primarily at the university community generate some publicity, but most stories regurgitate anti-gun propaganda to be “balanced” and do little to change the mind of a generally apathetic public. In the meantime, it’s up to those of us in the concealed carry community to step up and support Students for Concealed Carry on Campus by writing, phoning, or collaring our legislators on a regular basis regarding the discriminatory restrictions on campus carry. I hope to have some posts regarding this in the near future.

Responsible, law-abiding adults, no matter their age, should be able to carry any place they have a right to be. And that includes college campuses.