FTFA: "Some of my colleagues are concerned that you are encouraging firearms within a densely packed concentration of young people who are away from home for the first time, and are coincidentally the age associated with alcohol and drug experimentation, and the commission of felonies."
Not only that, but the college years tend to be the age when a number of mental illnesses start to swing into high gear. Schizophrenia, depression, and bipolar disorder come to mind.
The first point is rather diminished by the fact that the people actually (legally) carrying will be over 21 years of age.
I'm not sure how to address your second point, e.g. is that an argument for denying the enumerated constitutional right to bear arms to those in that higher risk age zone?
I'd prefer we counter-reform our mental health system; back in saner days, most of these shooters, like the Virginia Tech one, who was adjudicated by a judge, would have been controlled in one way or another so they weren't dangers. The introduction in the '50s of miraculously effective anti-psychotic drugs---something witnessed by my mother the nurse---allow solutions short of simple warehousing, but that wasn't enough for the powers that be, especially since there were more effective ways to buy votes.
The first point really isn't diminished. How many people do you know did things under the legal age limit in college?
As for the second point - "is that an argument for denying the enumerated constitutional right to bear arms to those in that higher risk age zone?" - well, you're stuffing straw into my comment.
I was adding to the author's point that this is a particularly volatile age. Sure we need to address mental health issues, Newtown etc, but I think allowing guns on campus is fanning the flames. Why is this prioritized over mental health reform?
Curious, if there is agreement on an age limit to legally carrying guns, why not raise that to, say, 25? Or, lower it to 16 which is the legal age to drive cars? Why coincide with the legal age of drinking, or the age of half of all college students in the country? Isn't an age limit an argument for arbitrarily denying the enumerated constitutional right to bear arms?
"The first point really isn't diminished. How many people do you know did things under the legal age limit in college?"
We're talking about Idaho allowing legal concealed carry on public campuses, right? How it illegal concealed carry germane to that???
Indeed I was stuffing straw, and you're more than encouraged to replace my best guess supposition with what you actually propose based on your observation.
"Why is [allowing guns on campus] prioritized over mental health reform?"
Because we can actually do something about the former, while the latter is blocked by the ACLU and the usual suspects. In fact, "severe" deinstitutionalization has a longer history than severe national level gun control (state level gun control has a complicated history, most post-Reconstruction, around the turn of the century aimed at the new waves of non-Anglo-Saxon immigrants, or starting in the '70s), the latter starting in '68, and it's been at net rolled back starting in '86, with a nationwide sweep of shall issue laws starting with Florida in '87, now with the Federal courts getting in the act soon to cover 90% of the population.
There have been a very few slight wins WRT to mental health counter-reform, but nothing at all like the RKBA reforms. So while we continue to beat our head against a brick wall in the former, pushing the latter is merely reinforcing success, a sound tactical and strategic principle.
And one check against the public dangers of deinstitutionalization. Not that most of the severely mentally ill are anything but a danger to themselves, but we can't help but notice the solid correlations of severe mental illness and these shootings, and as noted elsewhere, for a long time, except for one, a correlation with "Gun Free Zones". Decreasing those may not help at net, but it will help those in areas where effective self-defense and its deterrent effects are allowed once again. And that's part of why it was the one Colorado gun-grabbing measure to fail last year.
As for your last point, we've been litigating that, going for age 18, and just lost a few days ago with the Supremes. Obviously any line is arbitrary, but it's a well and long established principle that "children" don't have the full constitutional rights of adults, that their parents stand in for them there. And for some time, that the ages of 18 to 21 are where we draw these boundaries; are you old enough to remember the ratification of the 26th Amendment (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-sixth_Amendment_to_the_...)?
Not only that, but the college years tend to be the age when a number of mental illnesses start to swing into high gear. Schizophrenia, depression, and bipolar disorder come to mind.