Constitutional Law

Report from Ohio State University campus

Reader Mark Noble emails his thoughts in relation to yesterday's shooting at OSU:

I?ve been very disappointed in OSU PD?s handling of public safety. The campus is surrounded on 3 sides by some of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Columbus. When I?ve talked to the Columbus Police Community Liaison officer at on-campus safety events they blame the victims for getting assaulted and robbed in the neighborhood. Many of the robberies happen to students walking in pairs or groups (which are no match for one or two armed attackers) and the Police parrot the same advice ?walk in groups?. To discourage car and apartment thefts they advise OSU students to carry all of their valuables on their person ? this just leads to juicier unarmed targets.

I watched the 11:00a press conference from OSU PD. Important facts from the conference.

OSU ?takes safety very seriously?.
OSU PD arrived exactly two minutes and one second after the situation was over.
OSU PD heroically captured the suspect who had shot himself and lay dying.
OSU heroically notified students of the danger a half-hour after the threat was over.

Reporter: Are you satisfied with the way that everything worked?

OSU Director of Public safety: I'm extremely satisfied and I'm also very appreciative of not only the way that the staff responded in terms of notifying us - taking cover - but also I'm very pleased with the response of our police and law enforcement personnel and also the EMS personnel who responded fairly quickly.

SOURCE: 6:50 into this video.

Other incidents on campus involve multiple armed robberies on the gun-free campus. One very close to the scene of today?s shooting in the same building with the police station. Several shootings have happened at the University Hospital nearby where state prison inmates are brought for treatment and occasionally try to escape.

Because of fears of ?drunken college students? misusing handguns, my mom and brother who work in adjacent buildings to this fatal shooting are prevented by their employer and state law from defending themselves at work. My brother is a concealed handgun licensee. My wife, an OSU student frequents another part of campus where a woman was raped the other day. A few days prior, a student with a golf club disrupted an earlier attack attempt in the same area ? yet my wife, an NRA Certified Pistol instructor cannot be trusted to defend her own life because she?s a ?college student?.

Full post as published by Of Arms and the Law on March 10, 2010 (boomark / email).