Not everyone has a blast with gun use
Issue date: 4/7/05 Section: Opinion/Editorial
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This method of blowing off steam is a controversial one that a few vocal professors have spoken out against. The Second Amendment, unlike the cherished First, is ripe for mockery on campus, with professors posting signs on their doors prohibiting firearms as though that is a threat at this university. Others jokingly suggest that the Campus Conservatives move from targets to actual people. Hilarious!
The Campus Conservatives are doing what they should always be doing - inciting debate on campus. Yet perhaps their justification for firing guns deserves a little mockery, or even better, a little scrutiny.
Last Friday was the second installment of "Blow Away Your Stress," an activity open to all students who wish to blow off steam by firing guns at targets. I went with the Campus Conservatives for the first installment, and it was indeed a learning experience.
To be fair though, I probably felt more nervous than relaxed after the whole experience. Leaving the shooting range parking lot, I was so tense that I backed my car into the building and threw a hissy fit.
Even though I don't ever foresee myself using guns as a method of relaxation, I still believe it's in my best interest to know a thing or two about self-defense. As soon as I rack up a little free time, I intend to more thoroughly learn how to use a gun.
Although I strongly support the right to bare arms, using AK-74s as a means of leisure is a little disconcerting. I prefer to think of guns as a means of self-defense rather than emotional release. Still, knowing how to fire a gun isn't a worthless talent.
Learning how to load and fire a gun may just be more relevant in our lives than studying about, say, Polish cinema or Italian architecture. Students at Webster get a broad liberal arts background, but one of Webster's tenets is "real world experience." Nothing is quite so matter-of-fact as knowing how to take aim and fire. Perhaps all students could benefit from taking time away from their studies of formal logic and learning how to protect themselves.
Critics of such logic argue that "self-protection" is merely setting up an imaginary enemy as an excuse to use guns. But, as it happens, there are enemies out there and violence exists, though hopefully few of us have had to experience it firsthand.
