Atomic City Talk

Stacey is on the move again. He wants to allow college professors to carry guns on campuses in Tennessee.

So, what happens when some professor goes off his medication for a couple of weeks?

The school and college shootings, as well as the slaying of a psychiatrist in Manhattan, have led me to wonder if we've missed the real underlying problem: mental health. I don't know if there are more crazy people than there used to be, or if it's simply that they're out in general society where they used to not be,

No, I don't think teachers or students need to be armed in the classroom.

Personally, I think it is stress. It sends people off the deep end. I agree, professors are as prone as anyone else to problems and you don't need them going armed. Then there is always the possibility that the professor feels he is in a threatening situation and takes out a weapon. The student takes it away and starts shooting but had no prior intention to do that. This could be a potentially dangerous situation.

Well said, Earnestine.

I don't know about the diagnosis of stress, and it is difficult for me to explain the N IL and VA Tech shootings based on "stress." But arming more amateurs protects nobody.

Perhaps Stacy should move and work for AC citizens. If the quotes in the papers are right, he'd fit right in with our commission.

I believe in concealed carry if properly trained( with yearly training/refresher courses). With that said I have a solution to some of this but it would be time consuming. Student IDs and auto door locks or as we know it Card Access. I would take a security dept that stayed on top of it. Only allowing students access to common areas and to their individual class/lecture halls. The logistics would be rough to set in place for sure but I think it would work out in the long run.It would also fully depend on everybody doing their jobs on time. I understand that it would be expensive but I surely don't think safety is an issue that should be over looked.Getting shot just because you are sitting in class isn't a valid reason to be shot now robbing somebody or something would be.

"Student IDs and auto door locks or as we know it Card Access."

SB, I wouldn't be surprised if that becomes a pervasive policy. Access to at least some research space was by card entry after 5 PM and on weekends where I worked as a postdoc in the mid-'80s, and you can't get past the security guard in the lobby or ride the elevator in the University building I work in now. I understand that card entry is required in the dorms on our main campus.

Nobody will be killed by an entry card.

Most, if not all the campus shooters seem to be students themselves. Card access might keep them out of some classrooms but not the classrooms or lecture halls they are enrolled in.

Seems to me it is the "copycat theory." They have seen that others have done it and decide, for whatever reason, to kill as many as they can and then themselves. I certainly do not have the answer.

Good point, KR. However, the N. IL shooter was not a student there at the time. He had graduated and, IIRC, was enrolled at Champaign-Urbana.

Thats what i was saying. had they had Access Cards on the doors,main and lecture) I doubt that he could have gotten in but then theres always the lay and wait.
I don't know but it seems as if he had a beef with some of the people involved. I don't know what it was but I'm sure it wasn't a life ending event.