Arming Professors? Has He Ever Been To A Faculty Meeting?

by Stuart Shapiro

In response to shootings at Virginia Tech, Del. Bob Marshall wants to drop the ban on professors carrying concealed weapons on campus. 

Marshall claims his bill could prevent another tragedy like the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, presumably by enabling some heroic cultural anthropology professor to emerge from his office and gun down an assailant. The facts, however, do not agree with Marshall that concealed firearms prevent crime — indeed, they say the opposite.

Aside from the facts cited by Think Progress, the idea of my academic colleagues carrying guns terrifies me.  I would definitely be much more cautious the next time a heated argument about what counts as a statistics class breaks out at a departmental meeting.

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.