Guess What?

Stolen from Another Gun Blog:

"It's weird that somebody came onto campus with a gun," "It kind of made me think that anybody could be doing anything on our campus." Freshman Rachel Robbins

I hate to tell you this, Sunshine, but anyone can bring a gun on campus NOW, it's just illegal.

When I was living in Iowa there was no chance of getting a conceal carry permit from the Story County Sheriff.  "Better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6" was my logic; so I carried without a permit.  That included the campus of Iowa State University.  Guess what happened!  NOTHING!

Why?

Because I was an otherwise law abiding citizen who had been denied the legal means to self defense.  I also recall one of the Founders said something to the effect of "any law that runs contrary to your rights is void; and should be treated as such."  Well, that's what I did.

Ms. Robbins may be shocked to learn that she may already surrounded by gun owners who are being very, very quiet about it because they don't want to end up arrested over it, nor dead should a Virginia Tech incident happen.

I tend to prefer arrested to dead.

I've mentioned before that my law abidance has increased dramatically since I got my carry permit.  Almost as if no longer being forced to break one law makes me respect the others all the more.  I have not carried where I am forbidden since (much longer than the statute of limitations by the way).

Related to this:  I did a search to see if Iowa's new conceal carry law allowed campus carry, it does not.  I stumbled across an article from the ISU Pravda Iowa State Daily where Stephanie Madon, associate professor of psychology, references the weapon effect.  It's real.  What she fails to mention is the "offensive effect of a weapon" which is also real, and stronger.

The weapon effect is simply that an aggressor will be more aggressive when there's even an image of a weapon present.

The offensive effect of a weapon, counterintuitively, is that less aggression occurs when a real weapon is present because of the likelihood of it being used.

You have to consider both effects.  While someone who is going to go off will be more likely to do so if they've got a weapon, they are also far less likely to do so if there's a likelihood of someone else having a weapon.  Also part of both is that a person who has a weapon and is assured of being the only person with a weapon is much more likely to go off.  An associate professor of psychology should know that.

Isn't that what we conceal carry people have been saying for decades?