In the opinion article, "More guns, please," Carolyn Pippen offered sarcasm as an appropriate treatment of a serious social issue. Concealed carry on college campuses is a serious issue — as is evidenced by the number of state legislatures considering various concealed carry measures in the past legislative session. Not to mention the growing number of student groups forming independently across the country in support of concealed carry.

There is no problem with honest skepticism, but the paranoia exhibited in the article was ridiculous. No one travels through Nashville wondering if the person in the car in front of them is going to come out guns blazing after you just slid into their bumper. And yet with 12,700 permit holders in Davidson County, statistically that would mean every one in 40 people you pass (off campus) would have a handgun carry permit. Let's be honest, people don't live constant fear of permit holders off campus ... and the same would be true of permit holders on campus.

The author also seems to think guns will inherently make a place more dangerous, but if that were true then the campus police station would be a hotbed of accidental and hostile shootings. Rather, guns in the hands of competent and law-abiding individuals serve a defensive purpose. And Tennessee's permitting system works. Only 0.001 percent of handgun carry permits had to be revoked last year. Nationally, the U.S. Department of Justice, the National Academy of Sciences and the Center for Disease Control all agree — concealed carry does not increase crime. So why all the hysteria?

We aren't asking that handgun carry permits be given to a new class of individuals. Rather, all we ask is that those college students who are already permitted to carry throughout the rest of the state of Tennessee be allowed to carry on campus as well. We don't think those permit holders will show any less discretion on-campus than they do off campus.
I invite The Vanderbilt Hustler to seriously consider the facts and statistics presented in the Students for Concealed Carry on Campus (SCCC) Handbook.
 
Benjamin Neiman
Students for Concealed Carry on Campus
East Regional Director