According to the Houston Chronicle, professors at the University of Houston “may want to avoid sensitive subjects or drop certain topics from their curriculum altogether” because students will be allowed to carry guns on campus after August 1st. A slide shown at a UH campus carry debate gave professors and instructors advice on how to change their curricula to accommodate campus carry. The argument against campus carry being “allowing guns into the classroom will limit academic freedoms and inhibit discussion of sometimes touchy subjects.”
The implication being levied, since these people are too cowardly just to come out and say it, is that students with concealed carry permits will feel triggered or challenged in classroom discussions and react by shooting the instructors or fellow students. This is demeaning. This is insulting. This is factually inaccurate. This is the academic variant of “CCW will turn every fender-bender into the shootout at the OK Corral.” This is, and I’m being technical here, bullshit.
This is also the most insane mix of projection and a lack of self-awareness. 2015 was the year of student protests. The protests, beginning at the University of Missouri, have spread to a dozen or more campuses across the country. These protests have been ugly. Students screaming bloody murder and cursing professors over an email about Halloween Costumes. Students screaming at and threatening other students for studying during a protest. Professors siding with the protesters assaulting students who don’t. Students on the brink of rioting because a conservative speaker came to campus. Not to mention a whole host of other petulant and ridiculous reasons. Many, if not all, of these students adhere to the political philosophy of Social Justice, which is an ideology that really doesn’t jive with gun rights.
I think it is safe to say that little Ms. Special Snowflake here isn’t a fan of campus carry. If the idea of someone holding an opinion different to her own on campus is a threat to her safety, I can’t imagine the way she would lose her mind (and maybe even bowel control) if she found out someone had a different opinion AND and gun in proximity to her.
Activist students protesting over the most tenuous perceived slight, going on hunger strikes, issuing demands to schools containing Stalinistic levels of arbitrary punishments and censorship, and forcing the resignation of Deans and School Presidents; no, none of that is a threat to academic discussion (if you read no other link, read this one). But some 21 year old student, who has gone through a criminal background check (including fingerprinting), quietly sitting in class with a legally owned pistol in his waistband; that is going to end classroom intellectual pursuits.
Right…..
I’m going to go on the record here and say, as a Ph.D., and as someone who has taught college classes, including having had to fail a couple of students, the idea that campus concealed carry is death knell of academia in America. Each and every UH faculty member who has bought into this idea is a close minded putz.
OMGOMGOMG WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE.
The same argument has been made after every state has passed concealed carry. I’m still waiting on my river of blood. I haven’t seen a good shootout since… Well, never.
We’re dealing with these idiots here in Iowa over the age limit for children to be allowed to use a handgun. Currently the child has to be 14 to even touch a handgun. Long guns, no age limit. One of the opponents even had this to say;
“Opponents questioned the lack of age limit under the bill.
“We do not have handguns that I am aware of that fit the hands of 1-year-olds, 2-year-olds, 3-year-olds, 4-year-olds to operate handguns,” state Rep. Kirsten Running-Marquardt, a Democrat, told legislators during debate.
“We do not need a militia of toddlers,” Marquardt added.”
Notice the key word, Democrat. I have a couple of young grandsons that love to go to the range with me. Yet, because they are under 14, I’m not allowed to teach them handgun safety.
We’re also working on a suppressor bill and some idiot sent in a LTE saying how there will be gunfire in the streets and we’ll never know because of silencers.. .
You can’t make this shit up.
I can see it now, “and, of course, the acceleration due to gravity always works in the down direction, toward the center of mass of the body, and since most of our problems are here on the earth, at 9.8 meters per second squared”.
“NO! Gravity works sideways! You’re gonna die!!”
As never has happened anywhere in history.
Don’t these people have any idea about research and/or history.
If the person pushing for professors to drop “sensitive” parts of their curricula, could point to the rash of violence that has happened in the classroom before students were allowed to carry, then, maybe, they would have a point.
Seriously. If someone is going to get violent because of the classroom discussion, they are going to do so whether they are carrying a gun or not.
And, since that is not happening all the time now, what makes these idiots think it will suddenly happen because someone has a firearm?
Thought process:
Students can carry a gun on campus.
We might have the same exact discussion we had last semester.
Student will fly off the handle and kill the teacher because…. potato.
This is just like the argument Feminists use to try and accuse gamers of being misogynists. There are women alive today who love technology, who are enthusiastic about science, who went into other fields because Feminism told them they would have to deal with misogyny, and invariably their discovery is that the only people using harassment to keep women out of tech fields are… feminists.
This is the same thing. The only people using threats and intimidation to prevent anybody from teaching controversial or difficult topics are the ones accusing the other side of threats and intimidation.
Standard tactic. Create a problem, promise to fix it, do nothing.
Let’s use this positively.
I would tell my Leftist/Socialist/Progressive/Communist teachers that I will be offended by any discussion of the benefits of socialism, any talk about gun control, any mention of Democrat officials, support for homosexuality and abortion, attacks on Christianity, and so on.
Per their own “rules” and “suggestions” they should drop that crap or risk my concealed carry rage (not really, but that is how skewed they think).
Pretty much the professors will be left to only teaching the subject at hand like physics, without their political rants. That would be refreshing. If they forget, just rack the slide.