<p>My backpack comment was a result of knowing about many students (mostly in Colorado - yes, I’m aware there are campuses that allow it) who carry their guns in this way.</p>
<p>While only 1% of students on these campuses may CCW now, with the VT publicity, I suspect more will do so (providing their universities allow it).</p>
<p>Your point about 20 shooting at the shooter is not realistic. In many classrooms, there isn’t a clear division between someone walking in and the rest of the class. It depends on the size of the class. So you don’t have 20 people shooting at the shooter; you have 20 people trying to shoot at the shooter and hitting people in between. If you do have a classroom with a clear demarcation, the professor is at the front of the room and is likely going to be between the students and the shooter. Not a good position to be in.</p>
<p>On campus is much different than off campus. You have a large number of teenagers and young adults, lots of available alcohol, and emotions that often run high. Lots of things happen on campus that don’t happen elsewhere, like hazing. A college campus is nothing like the “outside world.”</p>
<p>Not having an incident on a handful of campuses is not representative. Those are all campuses that tend to draw heavily from the local area.The local areas tend to have a long-standing tradition of guns, which usually goes hand in hand with a focus on gun safety. That is not the case for most campuses.</p>
<p>Saying “The scenario has never happened” is not a very good argument, since colleges don’t usually allow CCW. A grocery store, again, is not the same thing - different population, setting - and those things do matter.</p>
<p>I’m not an idiot. I don’t think the gun is going to magically go off. But I don’t likely know the person next to me. Is he depressed? Suicidal? Psychotic? Before you argue the validity of that statement, many of the people in classes with the VT shooter had no idea he was off his rocker. I’ve sat with a student in class who later killed himself. I had no idea, even though I’d talked to him. A professor I know had a student who left class and shot his roommate (off campus). Many professors have had incidents in class with violent students. I don’t think it’s wise to throw guns into the mix.</p>
<p>And while we’re at it, let me just mention the high incidence of campus rape and say that guns may not be a good addition to that. Also, your students who are perfectly safe gun owners normally may not be so safe after a drunken frat party. There’s been plenty of off-campus examples of that.</p>