To the Editor:
I applaud the editors of The Bulletin for doing what is right and declaring that they “oppose guns on campus” (September 29, 2016, Volume 116, Number 05, p. 4). I, too, oppose guns on campus and believe that there are no university problems that can be solved, nor any university values that can be better upheld, by concealed carry.
In an article of this same edition, “Kansas universities forced to allow concealed carry,” Dustin Bittel, after acknowledging there has been “a variety of mixed student, faculty and staff reactions about the law itself and the passing of the bill within the faculty senate,” quotes President Garrett as having said “the law is the law and we certainly, as a university, want to do our best to comply.”
She is in good company. Even Henry David Thoreau confessed, in “Civil Disobedience” (1849), “I seek […] an excuse for conforming to the laws of the land. I am but too ready to conform […] I find myself disposed to review the acts and position of the general and State governments, and the spirit of the people, to discover a pretext for conformity.”
But Thoreau also wrote, “Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislation? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think that we should be men [and women] first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.”
I have conducted my own review of the Kansas state government regarding concealed carry and I find its legislation wanting. I, too, respect the law but, when I examine my conscience, I feel this law falls far short of what is right. The text of the Ninth Amendment of the Bill of Rights reads: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” I believe a fundamental right “retained by the people” is the right not to exercise a right that’s wrong. I urge each member of the ESU community who has already decided to exercise his or her right to carry a concealed weapon on campus when the law comes into effect next July to reconsider that decision. As for those who have not yet made up their minds, I ask you to think, long and hard, about this issue over the next several months. I hope you find sensible “pretexts” of your own not to practice what I feel is an unnecessary extension of this particular freedom.
Sincerely,
Mike Pelletier
Senior English student, Writing Center Tutor, and USAF veteran