Dear Editor,

I’m writing in response to Cassidy Gruber’s April 16 column “SCCC rally:… Dear Editor,

I’m writing in response to Cassidy Gruber’s April 16 column “SCCC rally: Preventing violence with violence.” Gruber makes a number of statements, only one of which is actually correct. The Students for Concealed Carry on Campus rally is not as much about the Second Amendment as it is about promoting awareness of the fact that we are defenseless when we step foot on a college campus. Obviously, we do support the Second Amendment, though Gruber was right in saying that the rally has little to do with it.

I find it amusing that people are quick to point out that the Second Amendment is antiquated. Yet the same people are extremely quick to defend the rest of the Constitution. According to these individuals, the Founding Fathers only screwed up in writing one of the amendments: the second.

I will ignore for a moment the fact that there is absolutely no proof that the Second Amendment has caused or propagated gun violence in the United States.

There are plenty of countries without an equivalent to our Second Amendment that have gun violence.

But by far the most disturbing part of Gruber’s column is that she presumes to know the members of the SCCC and why they carry firearms. Every member who is legally allowed to carry a gun and does so has a different reason for their choice. The most common reason is that we feel that we have a right and a responsibility to defend our friends, our loved ones and ourselves. I fail to understand why that right extends only as far as the edge of a college campus.

Gruber states that the SCCC does not want a safer university, but rather “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 find this personally offensive. That is not why I carry a firearm, or why any of our members do. She makes this presumption with no proof or firsthand experience. I’ve passed many people in public while I’ve been carrying a concealed handgun and not once has anyone told me that I walk with an air of confidence or arrogance.

I challenge Gruber and any other person who opposes concealed carry on college campuses to give valid reasons, proof and statistics backing their argument.

After all, Utah has allowed concealed carry at all nine public colleges in the state since 2006, and there has not been a single incident of gun violence, a single gun accident or a single gun theft.

Colt Templin Event Coordinator Students for Concealed Carry on Campus Pitt Chapter