Gunning for Guns

The University of Colorado Regents are trying to preserve their right to ban guns on campus. They say they decide who gets to do what on university property.

Meanwhile, gun rights activists are telling us that guns are necessary on campus (and elsewhere) because you never know when a random killer is going to attack. Someone with a concealed gun can take out that killer and prevent mass casualties.

By my calculation fewer than two lives per year would have been saved in this country since 1966, even if every university shooter had been killed by a legitimate gun owner at the first shot.

School shootings have gone up in the past decade, but still, fewer than five lives would have been saved per year in that period.

Clearly, more than five additional deaths would occur each year with the presence of legal guns due to gun accidents, escalation of arguments, stolen weapons, and other types of mortality.

And yet, the U.S. Constitution, as recently confirmed by the Supreme Court, guarantees the right of the people of this country to have weapons and to carry them.

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