SCCC rally: preventing violence with violence

The College Republicans send me a lot of e-mails. I haven’t taken my name off the mailing list… The College Republicans send me a lot of e-mails. I haven’t taken my name off the mailing list because I like getting e-mail, and I like having a laugh.

And last week, I was glad that I was still on their list because I received from them an e-mail of great interest.

The subject line read “Stand Up for Your Second Amendment Rights!” and the body of the e-mail advertised an event planned for next Tuesday, April 22, sponsored by Students for Concealed Carry on Campus.

The event, to be held in front of the Cathedral of Learning, is a kick-off rally for the nationally held “Empty Holster Protest.” According to the event’s Facebook page, the “Empty Holster Protest” is a week-long protest in which members of SCCC will wear empty holsters around campus to show that they are responsible, trained gun owners who deserve to be able to protect themselves and others by carrying a concealed weapon onto college campuses.

Do I fault the College Republicans for advertising this event as having anything to do with the Second Amendment? Yes. But the SCCC is responsible for the rally and not the College Republicans. And what its members are rallying for has very little to do with the Second Amendment.

I don’t really believe in a person’s “right to bear arms.” It is an antiquated piece of legislation, necessary at the time it was written perhaps, but something that has spiraled into a number of laws and loopholes that have allowed for the propagation of gun violence in the United States. However, at the moment, the Constitution allows private citizens with gun licenses to own guns, so my dislike of weapons amounts to a hill of beans.

What the Constitution does not guarantee, though, and what the SCCC wants, is the right for people to bring those weapons into our classrooms and dorms. This I refuse to consent to.

The SCCC claims that allowing students to carry weapons on university property might prevent deaths in the event of a campus shooting because the responsible, trained gun owners will be able to take down the shooter in the early stages of the massacre.

Posted along with mock-ups of a T-shirt and poster design are a number of pictures of the guns that some of the group’s founders own. They are displayed with an air of pride and include, among a few handguns, pictures of high-power weapons that couldn’t be carried easily in a holster, let alone concealed – weapons made not for protection or self-defense, but in order that the possessor might feel more powerful.

These pictures show exactly the hypocrisy of the attitude of the SCCC.

What the SCCC wants is not a safer university but a university in which its members can walk around with more confidence and arrogance because they are made more dominant by a weapon that is strapped to their chests or tucked into their belts.

I know that next Tuesday is a big day for any politically minded person.

And I know that it falls during the middle of finals week and that the weather is supposed to be bad, but I have to encourage every single person out there who feels that a student’s right to live a safe and nonviolent life to stop by the rally next Tuesday and inform the SCCC that its campaign is not one that will be supported here at Pitt.

E-mail Cassidy at cassidygruber@gmail.com.