Diane Roberts: Mixing guns and college kids is a really dangerous idea

It’s happened again: a sick person goes to a college campus, pulls out a gun, and starts firing.

And again, the ignorant or just plain vicious people who think the answer to gun violence is more guns squeal that if every Florida State University student, professor, groundskeeper, manager, lunchroom lady, electrician, janitor, ticket taker and rat-catcher packed heat, then everything would be grand. Jesus would smile down from heaven and carry on polishing the barrel of his Thompson M192.

Myron May, who did the shooting at Strozier Library, and who was, in turn, shot and killed by law enforcement, was an FSU alumnus, a practicing lawyer in New Mexico until October, when he seemed to lose his grip on reality. He imagined himself a “targeted individual,” worrying the “government” had bugged his shoes and installed cameras in his car.

It appears May got the .380 he wanted easily and legally — never mind his deteriorating mental state. However, he never got the medical help he needed.

Florida Carry, a “gun rights” outfit, leapt in front of every available camera, squawking that the incident at FSU would have gone much better if everybody was packing: “Any response time beyond a gun in your hand is too long,” said Eric Friday. “You wouldn’t set your hair on fire and then wait for the fire department to put it out. You would grab a fire extinguisher.”

Or you could avoid sticking your head in the flames.

When they’re not diddling their triggers, the dunderheads of Florida Carry file lawsuits to force colleges to allow guns on campus. They’ve succeeded in making sure guns can be kept in cars on college premises. Now they want guns all over: dorms, frat houses, classrooms, libraries, football games.

What could go wrong? Surely you don’t think the combination of young people, strong drink, strong emotions, late nights, and drugs could ever be a bit volatile? Or to quote Joe the Plumber, one of the gun-lickers’ favorite conservatives, “Your dead kids don’t trump my constitutional rights.”

Lucky for us at FSU, we didn’t have any dead kids, unless you count May. FSU’s alert system worked; our law enforcement showed up fast and killed him.  Imagine the carnage if a bunch of scared people started shooting in the direction of what they thought was the gunman.

As a professor at FSU, I take this personally. An institution of higher learning should be gun-free — whatever it takes. Your spurious “right” to pack heat doesn’t trump my right to keep on breathing.

Besides, I’m a tough grader. Will I have to worry that you might shoot me because you didn’t get that A you needed for admission to law school? Are you (and your parents) going to have to worry that your texting in class is pissing me off so badly I pull my Ruger SP101 on you? This is the land of Stand Your Ground: I’ll say I felt “threatened.”

Florida Carry, the NRA, and their bullet-sniffing brethren in the Florida Legislature will use the terrible episode at FSU to demand guns be allowed anywhere and everywhere. They tried passing a guns-on-campus bill three years ago, but were stopped, largely thanks to FSU’s current president, John Thrasher.

The child of a close friend was killed in an FSU fraternity house when her sister’s boyfriend accidentally shot her with an AK-47.

“It’s beyond personal for me,” Thrasher told the Tampa Bay Times in 2011. “Any other time I might support something like [the guns on campus bill], but I just can’t.”

I continue to maintain that Thrasher should not have become FSU president. But I am grateful to him for his common-sense defiance of the NRA in 2011, and his calm leadership in the aftermath of these shootings. He’s not getting any love from his fellow conservatives, though: the blog-twit world is going ballistic.

See, the all-guns-all-the-time people behave as if life is an action movie or a video game, as if guns would confer on a bunch of students, faculty and librarians laser-like eyesight, nerves of tungsten, and dead-accurate aim.

It’s crazy. And stupid. As if no one would panic or shoot someone by mistake — which is what happens in real life. Real people are sometimes drunk, frightened, irrational, angry or confused.

What happened at FSU demonstrates the need for a functioning mental health-care system, tougher gun regulations and real gun registration. America is being held hostage by NRA lobbying money and a Supreme Court that has chosen to interpret the Second Amendment as a license to be your own militia.

Aiding and abetting, we’ve got men whose masculinity is weirdly tied up in their ability to wield a lethal weapon, women who walk around convinced that everyone they see is a potential mugger or rapist, and people of all genders who think having a gun will protect them from Barack Obama (who is still taking his sweet time about coming for their weapons), the UN One World Government, and space aliens.

People, we’ve got a problem.

Diane Roberts is a Professor at Florida State University. Column courtesy of Context Florida.