Tuesday, August 23, 2016

The Sound Of One Hand Clapping

Judge denies UT-Austin professors' attempt to block campus carry | The Star-Telegram:
A federal judge has denied three University of Texas at Austin professors’ initial attempt to keep guns out of their classrooms under the state’s campus carry law.
University of Texas (AUSTIN) faculty are uncomfortable with a new law which allows students (and staff, and faculty) to carry guns on campus.

College and University faculty have always been an insular bunch: from TA's (Teaching Assistants), to Instructors, to Professors, to "Full" or"Tenured" Professors ("you can't fire my ass ... nana nana boo-boo!") they have become accustomed to the rights and respects due them by their position and experience.

So when someone tells them that they "MUST" allow students to carry arms into the classroom, they are righteously indignant:

 U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel ruled that the professors, who had sought a preliminary injunction to block implementation of the law, had failed to establish their likelihood for success. UT students resume classes on Wednesday, and the professors' case will continue to work its way through the court while the law remains in effect. ... In the suit, the professors said the possibility of guns on campus could stifle class discussion in their courses, which touch on emotional issues like gay rights and abortion. They argued that was a violation of students' First Amendment right to free speech.

Why am I not convinced that their objections had anything to do with the student rights?
Why do I think they just don't trust their students?
Why do I think they're a bunch of ostriches, with their heads buried in ... the sand?

These Academicians have been insulated for their entire professional career from the cares of  'normal' social interaction.   They have been told and trained to enjoy their prerogatives to control their classrooms as they see fit.

They have ignored, generally, the inconveniences of campus massacres:

From the Enoch Brown massacre of 1764 (attacked by Indians; Brown and nine children were killed. Two scalped children survived their wounds.Four children were taken as prisoners ) to the El Centro College massacre of July 17, 2016 (Dallas, Texas: Five police officers were fatally shot and seven others wounded Thursday on and nearby the campus of El Centro College in downtown Dallas during a protest over recent police shootings in Minnesota and Louisiana) ... students, police and instructors have always been vulnerable to violence. In America ... well over 100 before 1970 alone!

And then it got really bad.

Why is that so?

Why do so many people attack schools, in a country which loves its children and which believes that the road to success leads through education of the masses?

The reason is, of course, because we have never felt it 'appropriate' to protect our children with guns.  Nobody is armed at a school.  It might frighten the little children ... or the collegiates.

But now, today, everyone knows that it's not a question of "if", but "when" some insane agenda-driven madman person (I'm trying to be Politically Correct in my terminology so as to initiate any "Triggers")
[Trigger: U. Alberta definition]
(See what I mean?  You can't talk to these people unless you understand their definitions.)
Unfortunately, the people in your classroom who are likely to be armed are less likely to be those who attack you.   Yes, it's possible that they will be ... see Virginia Tech.   Which only makes the case:  

If Seung-Hui Cho had opened fire in his classroom and a few of his classmates had been armed, then it would not have been possible for him to successfully assault the "... advanced hydrology engineering class taught by Professor G. V. Loganathan in room 206... [where he] first shot and killed the professor, then continued firing, killing nine of the thirteen students in the room and injuring two others."
Do you see the part where he shot the professor first?   Don't you think that Loganathan wished that someone had shot Cho first?

Personally, I think the University of Alberta definition of "Trigger" which I referenced 4 paragraphs before is much less important than the definition that Cho was using.

Thus Endeth The Lesson: Sic Transit Gloria Magister.







1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Taken as a group, UT-Austin professors tend to be very liberal and anti-gun.