Stop Worrying About Guns in the Classroom. They're Already Here. THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION ERIK GILBERT Erik Gilbert is an associate dean of the graduate school and a professor of history at Arkansas State University. In the following commentary. Gilbert argues that allowing students and faculty to carry concealed guns on campus will have little effect on gun violence. Ifyou work at a Texas college and are worried by the prospect of having guns in your classroom. relax. The new campuscarly law changes your risk of gun violence very little. I can almost guarantee that if you have a few semesters ofteaching under your belt. at some point there have been students with guns in your classroom. Ifthose illegally armed students were not moved to violence by the content ofyour course or the statements oftheir fellow students, it seems highly improbable that a new group of legally armed students will prove to be more volatile or violenceprone than their scofaw peers. Ifyou really think that there are no guns on college campuses in Texas, or elsewhere, because there is a law that forbids having guns on campus, you are mistaken. On my own campus in Arkansas. despite a strict prohibition on guns. in the last decade there has been at least one accidental discharge ofa gun in a dorm room, several students who have been found to have guns in their cars, and at least one faculty member who was caught with a gun in oncampus faculty housing. And those are just people in \"casual" possession of guns with no intention of causing harm or mischiefwho ran afoul ofthe campus police because they were foolish or indiscreet with them. Given these incidents and what I know about the prevailing regional attitudes toward guns. I have to assume that signicant numbers of students. and possibly faculty. bring guns on campus regularly. Some ofthese probably do so intentionally. having calculated that the perceived benet of having a rearm available should they need it outweighs the very small risk of being caught with an illegal gun. On my campus. I suspect this group has increased in number since we had an activeshooter incident in December. It went as well as one ofthese things can. The \"shooter" did not actually re his weapon, and no one, including the guy with the gun. got hurt, but it still scared people pretty badly. Even on campuses that have not experienced an incident like this. the intense media coverage of such events has created a perception of increased risk. For some people the response to that perception is to carry a gun, whether or not it is legal to do so. The other people who are armed in your classroom are those whojust plain forgot they had a gun in their backpack. purse. or jacket. Ifthat sounds farfetched. remember that gun owners, just like other people. are occasionally absent-minded. It wasjust a year ago that a child found a loaded pistol in a toilet stall in the U.S. Capitol building. It had been left there accidentally by a police ofcer. People try to get on planes with guns. I was working my way through the security maze in Charlotte a few weeks ago and passed no fewer than three signs reminding passengers that most ofthe guns that Homeland Security nds in people's carry-on luggage are left there by mistake. . . . If some people forget that they have guns with them when they are about to get on a plane, it seems highly likely that students occasionally forget that they left a handgun in a car, bag. purse, or jacket when they are doing something as routine as going to class. So, ifyou have been teaching for a while, some ofyour students (and possibly your colleagues) have probably been illegally bringing guns onto campus and into classrooms. So far. despite the presence of rearms, no one has shot you or any of your students intentionally or unintentionally. no matter how controversial the content ofyour course. What will change when legal concealed-early permit holders bring guns into your classroom? Not much. Because permit holders" guns will be concealed, any guns in your classroom will remain invisible. just as they were before. Are concealed-carry permit holders a violent lot? No. In Texas they commit crimes at about the same rate as cops and at a lower rate than the general public. Texas requires that concealed-carry permit holders be at least 21, so most undergrads will not be eligible for a permit, and those who are will be a little more mature than the average student. Texas requires concealed-carry permit holders to submit photos and fingerprints with their applications, and the Department of Public Safety has up to 60 days to conduct a background check on applicants. While it's easy to dismiss students who want to bring guns on campus as victims of a culture of fear that overestimates the risks of daily life and the utility of responding to those risks with a gun, that argument can just as easily be reversed. People who are terrified by the prospect of a few students who have gone through background checks bringing concealed weapons to class are being just as irrational in their risk assessment as people who won't leave the house unarmed. Page 174 Speaking of flawed risk assessment, suggestions that Texas faculty avoid teaching controversial topics are predicated on the notion that students are so intensely engaged with the material in their classes that they are willing to risk doing 20 to life (and not receiving a passing grade) to challenge our ideas with gunfire. I find this utterly implausible. In every other context where we talk about student engagement, it is to decry its absence. . .Most of us complain that our students won't even read, and now we are worrying about them being so engaged that they might throw caution to the wind and start shooting? Cowboy up, Texas professors! Teach however and whatever you want. Don't worry about the presence of legally carried guns in your classrooms. If you are going to worry, worry about someone illegally bringing a gun on campus with the intention of causing mayhem, not someone who legally carries a gun in the hope of protecting himself from harm. And those students whose faces cloud with anger when you attack their complacently bourgeois understanding of Jane Austen, they are probably just reacting to something on their phones. And, anyway, they're too worried about their grades to shoot you. Source: Gilbert, Erik. "Stop Worrying About Guns in the Classroom. They're Already Here." The Chronicle of Higher Education, March 17, 2016.Testimony by Mark Kelly, Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on Gun Violence on January 30, 2013 Mark Kelly is a retired astronaut and captain in the US. Navy. He is also the husband of former Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford, who was shot in the head by Jared Lee Loughner while she was speaking at an event in Tucson. Arizona, on January 8,2011. As you know, our family has been immeasurably affected by gun violence. lGabby's gift for speech is a distant memory. She struggles to walk and she is partially blind. And a year ago, she left ajob she loves. sewing the people ofArizona. But in the past two years, we have watched Gabby's determination, spirit and intellect conquer her disabilities. We aren't here as victims. We're speaking to you today as Americans. . . . We're both gun owners and we take that right and the responsibilities that come with it very seriously. And we watch with horror when the news breaks to yet another tragic shooting. After 20 kids and six of their teachers were gunned down in their classrooms at Sandy Hook Elementary, we said: \"This time must be different: something needs to be done." We are simply two reasonable Americans who have said "enough." On Janualy 8. 201]. a young man walked up to Gabby at her constituent event in Tucson, leveled his gun and shot her through the head. He then turned down the line and continued firing. In 15 seconds. he emptied his magazine. It contained 33 bullets and there were 33 wounds. . . . The killer in the Tucson shooting suffered from severe mental illness, but even after being deemed unqualied for service in the Army and expulsion from Pima Community College, he was never reported to mental health authorities. On November 30, 2010, he wall-ted into a sporting goods store. passed the background check. and walked out with a semiautomatic handgun. He had never been legally adjudicated as mentally ill. and even if he had, Arizona. at the time, had over 121.000 records of disqualifying mental illness that it had not submitted into the system. . . . Gabby is one of roughly 100.000 victims of gun violence in America each and every year. Behind every victim lays a matrix of failure and inadequacy in our families, in our communities. in our values. in our society's approach to poverty, violence, and mental illness and yes, also in our politics and in our gun laws. One of our messages is simple, the breadth and complexity of gun violence is great. but it is not an excuse for inaction. There's another side to our story, Gabby is a gun owner and I am a gun owner. We have our rearms for the same reasons that millions of Americans just like us have guns, to defend ourselves. to defend our families. for hunting, and for target shooting. We believe wholly and completely in the second amendment and that it confers upon all Americans the right to own a rearm for protection, collection. and recreation. We take that right very seriously and we would never, ever give it up, just like Gabby would never relinquish her gun and I would never relinquish mine. But rights demand responsibility and this right does not extend to terrorists, it does not extend to criminals. and it does not extend to the mentally ill. When dangerous people get guns. we are all vulnerable at the movies, at church, conducting our everyday business, meeting with a government ofcial. And time after time after time, at school, on our campuses. and in our children's classrooms. When dangerous people get dangerous guns. we are all the more vulnerable. Dangerous people with weapons specically designed to inict maximum lethality upon others have turned every single corner of our society into places of carnage and gross human loss. Our rights are paramount, but our responsibilities are serious. And as a nation. we've not taken responsibility for the gun rights that our founding fathers have conferred upon us. Page HS Now, we have some ideas on how we can take responsibility. First, fix our background checks. The holes in our laws make a mockery of the background check system. . .. Second, remove the limitations on collecting data and conducting scientific research on gun violence. Enact a tough federal gun trafficking statute; this is really important. And finally, let's have a careful and civil conversation about the lethality of fire arms we permit to be legally bought and sold in this country. Gabby and I are pro-gun ownership. We are also anti-gun violence, and we believe that in this debate, Congress should look not toward special interests and ideology, which push us apart, but toward compromise which brings us together. We believe whether you call yourself pro-gun, or anti-gun violence, or both, that you can work together to pass laws that save lives. Source: Kelly, Mark. Testimony of CAPT Mark E Kelly USN (Ret.) Senate Committee on the Judiciary. Committee on the Judiciary. U.S. Senate, January 30, 2013