Self-Defense, Rights, and Tolerance

In their Feb 27 Colorado Daily article, the UCSU Tri-Executives opposed the right to self-defense (with concealed firearms) for the same reasons a racist would oppose allowing black people on campus: people will be scared of them. Having questioned their intolerance and prejudice in print (CO Daily, March 4), e-mail to them, and in person (testimony at the UCSU meeting that week) and receiving no response or challenge to my arguments, I must conclude that the Tri-Execs have no problem discriminating against and banning certain minorities from the University community.

In their latest confession (CO Daily, March 14), they compare their close-minded bigotry against gun owners to the heroism of past student civil rights activists: those who fought the oppressive Chinese government in Tiananmen Square, and those who opposed State-legislated intolerance of minorities. In a flourish of Orwellian Newspeak, the Tri-Execs identify themselves with the civil rights advocates! Yet, they want to impose their values on students by prohibiting choice, and they want to impose an alleged will of the majority upon a minority. War is peace. Freedom is slavery.

While Tri-Execs claim not to dispute that firearm ownership is a constitutional right, they want to prohibit the bearing of arms where it "does not make sense." But the Second Amendment concerns not only about firearm ownership, but also their use, hence "the right to keep and bear arms." Perhaps the Tri-Execs support the right to own books, but forbids reading them when doing so "does not make sense" to those in power.

Like any good power-seeker, the Tri-Executives substitute fear mongering and self-aggrandizement for reasoned arguments. If they truly respected their constituents and the school's academic reputation, they would have put forth a thoughtful and well reasoned argument, as Noah Podolefsky did (Letters, March 14). This argument deserves not ridicule, but a point-by-point response.

Podelefsky questions the studies showing that liberalized conceal-carry laws reduce crime, and sites Boulder's relative safety as a reason for not allowing people to defend themselves with firearms on campus. Yet, statistics are not the core issue. If people own their own bodies, and hence have a right to defend themselves against aggressors, self-defense is a basic human right. Consider the rights the First Amendment recognizes. Should artists and writers apply for "self-expression permits" by proving to government censors why they "need" to peaceably assemble or communicate their ideas, how their activity will not harm innocents, and will benefit the community?

By suggesting non-lethal forms of self-defense as substitutes for firearms, Podelefky incorrectly assumes that people often shoot or even kill criminals in the act of self-defense. Yet, as criminologist Gary Kleck wrote in "Armed Resistance to Crime" (available on-line), "Killing a criminal is not a benefit to the victim, but rather a nightmare to be suffered for years afterward. Saving a life through DGU [defensive gun use] would be a benefit, but this almost never involves killing the criminal; probably fewer than 3,000 criminals are lawfully killed by gun-wielding victims each year, representing only about 1/1000 of the number of DGUs, and less than 1% of the number of purportedly life-saving DGUs." Further, sometimes a gun is the only effective defense against some aggressors, and anyone who prevents a victim from exercising this means of self-defense is morally culpable for her death.

Lastly, Podelefky claims that gun-owners are not oppressed because we can bring our ideas about guns on campus. If this were true, then if sodomy were illegal on campus, would homosexuals not be oppressed because they could still think about sex? Right.