With the wave of criminal incidents around the DU campus, including sexual assaults and a shooting threat, as well as the mass shootings around the country and in our backyard that continue to shock our national conscience, our campus needs to consider all options to ensure the absolute safety and security of the DU community.
I believe the best option is to allow the Department of Campus Safety, DCS, to have access to firearms on campus.
The proposal I offer does not arm DCS officers with AR-15s or AK-47s while performing their rounds inside a residence hall, but rather would allow the trained officers to maintain a cache of weapons inside a locked vault in their office. I am not suggesting they be armed to the teeth at all times, because that would create a sense of imminent danger on campus.
The weapons would absolutely not be accessible to students or any group aiming to cause damage. The campus safety offices are already secure, and the weapons would be in a vault inaccessible to anyone outside the department.
I trust DCS because I know many of the officers and have worked with them in a professional capacity. Many are former members of law enforcement or veterans of military service. If anyone on campus should have guns, it is them; arming qualified people who have professional training and are already tasked with ensuring our safety acts as a strong shield of security to students, staff and faculty. Firearm training would be needed to bolster their already sterling resumés.
With access to firearms on-campus, DCS could also offer courses in the safe operation of firearms designed to familiarize students with their operation and function, as well as teaching the proper role of guns as weapons of self-defense.
After all, students are here for an education, so why could these unconventional courses not be a part of it?
Having armed security on campus not only makes the campus safer in the event of a mass shooting, God forbid, but would also enable DCS to have the upper hand in pursuing other types of violent fugitives on campus, such as the perpetrators of sexual assault, armed robbers and any other type of violent assailant who would prey upon students. I am not a jingoist calling for the shooting of every common criminal on campus, but armed fugitives need to be addressed by aptly-armed security.
Those who oppose guns on campus point out that there is a Denver Police Department (DPD) station only a few blocks from campus. This is true. However, according to a Denver Post article from 2012, the average response time from DPD when responding to a major crime was over 14 minutes. In that amount of time, many lives could have been lost in a shooting event.
It makes sense, then, to arm the people who know the layout and security scenario of the campus best: DCS and their professionally-trained officers.
It is not my distrust of the local police that informs my views on arming DCS, but rather the recognition that they know our campus better and could respond more efficiently and faster. In a crisis situation, the fastest response is certainly the best one.
It’s been said that the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. Arming DCS is a short-term solution to a major problem. It would increase our security in the event of a major crime at DU, not necessarily prevent crime from happening.
So until we can address a culture of violence and increase mental health treatment for those who would commit such terrible acts, we must be armed and vigilant, ready to respond should the lives of the members of our community be threatened.
Arming DCS officers makes us safe now, but is not an ultimate solution for gun violence. That will require comprehensive reform, including examining mental health.
