ALI KIRTLEY
Columnist
College years are a time to enjoy independence, but it’s also a particularly vulnerable time for students.
Recently, Northwestern posted a Facebook status that rang throughout the entire community. Community members, alumni and current students took to the post to give their opinions on the university’s public stance.
The post was hashtagged from a campaign throughout universities in Oklahoma for higher education called, “#InvestInHigherEd”. Although Northwestern stated there is no scenario where guns on campus makes campuses safer, the university does not currently offer a weapons safety class or to aid in investment of higher education about defense safety.
Instead, most penny-pinching college students have to pay an outside source to learn about weapons safety and self-defense. Both concerns are all too common in today’s society. That leads to the real question: Why should educational institutions, such as Northwestern, not host self-defense classes or offer it as a basic elective?
In elementary schools, middle schools and high schools, sex-education classes are offered because it is the time in the average student’s life to learn awareness about their own bodies. According to Oklahoma Watch, there are firearms in 50 percent of Oklahoma households; this includes rifles, pistols and other types of firearms. This is the point it starts to turn into a necessity for students to be aware of how to safely and properly handle a gun, or any weapon for that matter, for defense. The state Department of Health states that most firearm deaths are preventable.
In the state of Oklahoma all residents are eligible by the age of 21 for a conceal-and-carry class –– which is also a self-defense class depending on the instructor. Some students during the college education process reach the age of 21, a peak time to decide whether to introduce weapon defense into their lives.
Even then, every five to 10 years an individual sits through a one-time, eight-hour-long class or two four-hour classes to earn the right to conceal and carry. For those who have not grown up with a deadly weapon in the house or around atmospheres that teach the basics of weapons safety and how to use it to defend themselves, a weekend in a class may not be enough. This type of knowledge needs to be elaborated on while being periodically practiced and reinforced.
Northwestern’s mission statement acknowledges its quality education and cultural opportunities for learners. The university does an admirable job of offering diverse classes to the student body.
Guns, rifles, knives and weapons of all kinds will not disappear off the face of the earth; they are a part of the American culture. What might be lost in time is the knowledge of how to handle and defend one’s self with such weapons.
In no way is this an argument to put guns on campus. Instead, this is a plea for more available mediums to “invest in higher ed” for the student body. This is a plea to make a class available to students to elaborate on the informative methods, critical techniques and explanatory statistics of firearms and all types of potentially deadly weapons for the aid of self-defense. Bottom line: This is a plea for more knowledge.
It is the Second Amendment right of people to keep and bear arms and it shall not be infringed. So why not learn more than just the laws based on weapons, but also the safety side about weapons and self-defense at a university?